The Philosophy of Nietzsche (Modern Library, 1900 volume)

What it is

This is a book in the Modern Library series, a one-volume collection of writings by Friedrich Nietzsche. Its contents list Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo and The Birth of Tragedy, and it includes an introduction by Willard Huntington Wright. The catalogue record dates it to 1900, shortly after Nietzsche's death. The copy in the archive was once held by Trinity College, Toronto, and later by a private library.

Why it matters

This edition helped bring Nietzsche's ideas to English-speaking readers in the years after his death in 1900. Because it gathers several major works into one volume, it shows how his writings were packaged and read at the time. Readers of the period included the publishers and the translators who prepared the text for the American market.

Look closer

• Which of Nietzsche's works does the table of contents place first, and why might the publisher have chosen that order?
• Who wrote the introduction, and how might an introduction shape the way a reader understands Nietzsche?
• What does this collection leave out of Nietzsche's larger body of work, and who decided what to include?