Tocqueville, Alexis De | First edition of both parts

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft

Tocqueville, Alexis De

De la Démocratie en Amérique. Paris: Charles Gosselin, 1835, 1840

4 volumes, 8vo (203 x 125 mm). Hand-colored folding lithographed map after Tocqueville by Benard bound at the end of vol. 1, half-titles; foxed. Contemporary French half green calf, marbled boards, spines decorated with black stamped devices, tan morocco lettering-pieces; front joint of vol. 4 partly split, some chipping and wear, a few repairs. [With:] Tocqueville, Alexis De. Autograph letter signed (“Alexis de Tocqueville”) to Victor de Broglie (1785-1870), 3rd Duke of Broglie; Paris, 4 January 1842. One page, 8vo, a bifolium with integral address panel.

First edition of both parts, which are seldom found together: the first part was published in January 1835 in an edition of fewer than 500 copies; the second part did not appear until April 1840, by which time the enormously popular first part was already in its eighth edition.

One of the most penetrating political and social analyses of the United States ever written, De la démocratie en Amérique is based on Tocqueville's travels through America in 1831 and 1832 with Gustave Auguste de Beaumont. Charged by the French government to study the prison system of the United States, the two magistrates made a sweeping tour of the west and south after completing their penal studies in the east, visiting Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In the introduction to their recent translation, Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop call Tocqueville's treatise "at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America.”

In the accompanying letter, Tocqueville, who chronically suffered from tuberculosis, writes that his health is so precarious that he is forbidden to travel to the city and has had to refuse all invitations. The After learning that Tocqueville had succumbed to the disease in 1859, the Duke de Broglie famously said: “France no longer produces such men.”

REFERENCE:

Celebration of My Country 176; Clark/Old South 3:111(1); Howes T278, T279; Sabin 96060, 96061

PROVENANCE:

Bibliothèque de Lumigny (bookplate in each volume)