# Is "Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None" by Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Alexander Tille) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Alexander Tille) (H. Henry and Co., 1896) is identified by: First English translation, issued in 1896 by H. The London H.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First English translation, issued in 1896 by H. Henry and Co. in London and, several weeks later, by Macmillan in New York, translated by Alexander Tille, then a lecturer in German literature at the University of Glasgow, and collating xxiii+488pp
- Published as volume VIII of an eleven-volume uniform series of separately issued English translations of Nietzsche prepared under the supervision of the Nietzsche-Archiv in Naumburg; the Macmillan sheets were independently reset and run to only 479 pages of text
- The true first issue is bound in blue cloth, gilt-lettered on the front board and spine, with eight pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, and carries the H. Henry and Co. imprint on the spine
- Publisher imprint reads H. Henry and Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Alexander Tille) |
| Publisher | H. Henry and Co. |
| Year | 1896 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First English translation, issued in 1896 by H. Henry and Co. in London and, several weeks later, by Macmillan in New York, translated by… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First English translation, issued in 1896 by H. Henry and Co. in London and, several weeks later, by Macmillan in New York, translated by Alexander Tille, then a lecturer in German literature at the University of Glasgow, and collating xxiii+488pp. Published as volume VIII of an eleven-volume uniform series of separately issued English translations of Nietzsche prepared under the supervision of the Nietzsche-Archiv in Naumburg; the Macmillan sheets were independently reset and run to only 479 pages of text. The true first issue is bound in blue cloth, gilt-lettered on the front board and spine, with eight pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, and carries the H. Henry and Co. imprint on the spine.

## Is this the true first?
The London H. Henry and Co. issue appeared in late June 1896, several weeks before the New York Macmillan issue in mid-July 1896; the two were independently typeset rather than printed from shared plates, and the London printing is treated as the true first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
H. Henry and Co. was severely underfinanced and went bankrupt within the year, having issued only a handful of volumes of the projected eleven-volume series; T. Fisher Unwin then purchased the unsold sheets and issued them with a Fisher Unwin spine imprint, a second issue of the identical sheets. Only the blue-cloth binding with the H. Henry and Co. spine imprint is the true first issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None* by Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Alexander Tille) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/thus-spake-zarathustra-a-book-for-all-and-none
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.