Democracy in America. Part the First

London: Saunders & Otley, 1836. Second edition in English. Two octavo volumes, collating xliv, 333, [2 ads]; vi [of viii], 462, [2 ads]: with the folding map to the front of volume 1; half-title in volume 1, lacking half-title in volume 2 and lacking the second leaf of the table of contents. Bound in contemporary half-calf over marbled boards, marbled end papers, rebacked but retaining the original spines. Folding map, outlined in color, with a few cracks along the folds, some repaired on the verso, otherwise an excellent set internally.

The second edition in English of Part I, which was originally released in French and English a year earlier in 1835. Part II of Democracy in America would not appear in first edition in the Paris or London imprints until 1840. De Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, visited America between 1831 and 1832, ostensibly to study the penal system, although his interest was considerably broader. It seems logical that France would look to America as a beacon of hope for a successful democracy. After France embraced the goals of equality and democracy in 1789 at the start of the French Revolution, it found itself first in a dictatorship under Napoleon and then in one constitutional monarchy after another during the years following. De Tocqueville's astute observation of several aspects of American society and culture provides an invaluable lens of foreign perspective on our young nation's political growth.

Democracy in America was an immediate and sustained success. Almost from the beginning it enjoyed the reputation of being the most acute and perceptive discussion of the political and social life of the United States ever published. Whether perceived as a textbook of American political institutions, an investigation of society and culture, a probing of the psyche of the United States, or a study of the actions of modern democratic society, the book has maintained its place high within the pantheon of political writing.

"No better study of a nation's institutions and culture than Tocqueville's Democracy in America has ever been written by a foreign observer; none perhaps as good" (The New York Times).

Howes T-278, 279. Sabin 96062, 96063. Clark III:111. Cosentino (Washington 1989).