Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen I: David Strauss (Unconventional Observation I: David Strauss)

Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1873. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Nietzsche Destroys David Strauss…

NIETZSCHE, Friederich. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen I: David Strauss (Unconventional Observation I: David Strauss). Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1873. TP + [1]-101 + [102] = advertisements [mis-ordered signatures pp. 57-64 followed by pp. 53-56], Octavo. First Edition, First Issue. (Schaberg 23a)



The first of Nietzsche's Unconventional Observations was an attack on David Strauss the writer who had made his reputation with his scandalous Life of Jesus in 1835. Here Nietzsche attacks his most recent book The Old and the New Faith, which advocated the rejection of the Christian faith in favor of a Darwinian, materialistic and patriotic world-view. Nietzsche accuses Strauss of being a "Cultural Philistine" and denounces him as an exemplar of pseudo-culture. Although erudite, the essay is extremely intemperate and filled with references to many of Nietzsche's scholarly contemporaries. The climax is a literary tour de force, in which Nietzsche cites a litany of malapropisms from Strauss, interspersed with his own barbed comments. For Nietzsche, Strauss's book was the incarnation of the Zeitgeist: unproductive smugness, intellectual snobbery, superficial assimilation of great works of art and new scientific theories, myopic criticism and patronizing praise of even the greatest genius…But what enraged him most was Strauss's comfortable and untroubled renunciation of Christianity, coupled with an easy conviction that Darwin was one of mankind's greatest benefactors and that traditional values could of course be maintained. It is in the present work that Nietzsche first publicly addresses the problem of the derivation of moral values that would infuse so much of his most important work.

CONDITION: Very good or better in recently rebound in plain paper over boards with leather new spine, lettered in gilt. Internally, bright and clean. Mis-ordered signatures pp. 57-64 followed by pp. 53-56. A very good copy of one of Nietzsche’s early works.