Tocqueville, Alexis de | First edition of both parts of Tocqueville's De la démocratie en Amerique

Tocqueville, Alexis de

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

4 volumes, 8vo (210 x 134 mm). Handcolored folding lithographed map after Tocqueville by Benard bound at the end of vol. 2, half-titles; small spot on first half-title and title. Retrospective half tan calf and marbled boards, spine tooled in gilt and blind, by Ateliers Laurenchet.

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.” A handsome, clean copy.

REFERENCE

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