The decline of the West
44 SPENGLER, Oswald. Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Vienna & Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller [vol. 1]; C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münich [vols. 2–3], 1918–22–23 £12,500 [ 156783 ] Together 3 vols, large octavo. Der Untergang des Abendlandes : 2 vols, both uncut in original buff printed wrappers. Namen- und Sachverzeichnis : original cream linen-backed buff paper-covered boards and dust jacket, all with matching black lettering and border design to vol. 2 of Der Untergang , black endpapers, top edge black. All housed in a custom black cloth flat- back box. 3 folding tables in vol. 1, 12 pp. publisher’s ads in vol. 2. Wrappers of Der Untergang vols expertly repaired at spines, discreetly reattaching front cover and half- title of vol. 2; nonetheless presenting very nicely given their fragility, some curls and nicks at extremities. Vol. 1: contents crisp and fresh, many quires unopened, several leaves loose or loosening as expected (see note). Vol. 2: paper stock evenly browned, sporadic pencilled marginal marks and the occasional annotation in German, sheet of pencilled notes in German laid in between pp. 28–9 and newspaper clipping laid in between pp. 188–9 with resulting light offset. Namen- und Sachverzeichnis : contents clean and evenly browned, jacket lightly marked, edges chipped, neat Japanese tissue to browned spine verso stabilizing a few small tears. Overall a remarkably well-preserved set. ¶ Printing and the Mind of Man 410.
First editions, first impressions, of Spengler’s magnum opus, a comparative study of the fall of history’s great cultures in which he predicted the collapse of Western civilization. The first volume is the scarce true first published by Braumüller in 1918; both it and the second volume are uncut in the original wrappers, and are accompanied here by the separately issued index volume. Despite many rejections, the then-obscure historian Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) eventually succeeded in finding a publisher for Der Untergang des Abendlandes . The Viennese publishing house Wilhelm Braumüller issued the first volume in January 1918 but, anticipating poor sales, printed just 1,500 copies. After its immense popular success and a second edition, Spengler switched to
the Münich-based publisher C. H. Beck for the publication of all his later works, including the second volume. The first volume, rather than being firmly sewn in gatherings like most continental books of the period, is held together by the lightest application of glue along the backstrip, with the resulting loosening of some leaves within each quire. In spite of this, the book is in a very good state of preservation, entirely uncut and clean. The second volume, with the “first through fifth thousand” statement on the title page, is also sometimes encountered in cloth-backed paper-covered boards and a matching dust jacket.
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