Ecce homo (Behold the Man)

Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1908. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Henry Van de Velde. Nietzsche’s Self-Congratulatory Masterpiece Explaining: “Why I Am So Wise”

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Ecce homo (Behold the Man). Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1908. 1 leaf + TPs + 7-154 + [155] = Inhalt + [157] = “Exemplar” page, Square Quarto. First Edition. Schaberg 61b


Released in an edition of 1,250 copies: 150 on Japanese velin and 1,100 on parchment. Double-spread art nouveau title page illustrated by Henry Van de Velde. “Van de Velde developed all his decorative elements from the logic of the curve and reverse curve and by covered surfaces and plain surfaces. This brings the text and the decorations into an ideally close connection with each other” (Hofstatter, Art Nouveau, p. 100). Copies were so expensive that it was dubbed the "bank director's edition" (Schaberg, The Nietzsche Canon, p. 185).

First edition of Nietzsche's apologia, written as a pre-emptive defense against his interpreters, though not published for almost twenty years after it was written, due to the machinations and the fears of his sister. "I have a terrible fear that one day I will be pronounced holy: you will guess why I publish this book before; it shall prevent people from doing mischief with me. I do not want to be a holy man; sooner even a buffoon. - Perhaps I am a buffoon." To his future followers, he offers the following: "You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra! You are my believers - but what matter all believers! You had not yet sought yourselves, and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little."

CONDITION: Very good in original half vellum and grey boards with embossed circular title on the front cover in gilt and again in gild on the spine. Light bumping to extremities. One of 1,100 copies printed on parchment, this one being numbered 1026. A very good, well preserved, clean, and bright copy.

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