GOBINEAU (Arthur de). Essay on the inequality of human races. Paris : Librairie de Firmin Didot frères ; Hanover : Rumpler, 1853 (volumes 1 and 2) ; Paris : Librairie de Firmin Didot frères, 1855 (volumes 3 and 4). 4 volumes in-8, 220 x 139 : (2 ff.), XI, 492 pp., (1 f.) ; (2 ff.), 512 pp., (1 f.) ; (2 ff.), 423 pp. ; (2 ff.), 359 pp. Red half-chagrin, spine ribbed and decorated, gilt head (period binding). Very rare first edition of this famous essay by Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), dedicated to George V king of Hanover . The work was printed in 500 copies at the author's expense. The title that the latter decided to give to his study made him be considered for a long time as the father of racism. "In fact, the work, based on the deceptive erudition of an autodidact, develops a dark philosophy of history: at the beginning of time, the human races each possessed their own faculties, the yellow one endowed with practical spirit, the black one with artistic dispositions, the white one (and in particular its noblest branch, the Aryan family) with the virtues of honor and justice. But in the course of the centuries, they have, by mixing their blood, lost their pro-imitive qualities and are now doomed to an irremediable decadence. Far from being infinitely perfectible, humanity is sinking into the fatal swamp of equality in abjection. The Essay on the Inequality of Human Races, a romantic vision, is an epic of despair" (En français dans le texte, n°271, article by Jean Gaulmier). Copy having served as a basis for the second edition of the text, published in 1884. One realizes that the text has not undergone any changes and the only corrections that one finds there are those appearing in the errata. Prepared by Gobineau, this second edition appeared posthumously. The first 5 of the date of the first volume has been corrected to 8; the publisher's original ambition seems to have been to publish this edition in 1883. A very well preserved copy . Some scattered foxing.