GOBINEAU Joseph Arthur, comte de. Essay on the inequality of human races. Paris, Firmin Didot Frères ; Hanover, Rumpler, 1853-1855 ; 4 vol. in-8 of [4]-xii-492-[2] pp. ; [4]-512-[1] pp. ; [4)]-423-[1] pp. ; [2]-359-[1] pp. half hazel brown morocco with corners, spine ribbed boards highly decorated with gilt designs, entirely untrimmed, covers (Noulhac). Hard-to-find first edition, printed at the author's expense and limited to 500 copies. The work, based on a self-taught erudition acquired in the embassy posts the author had held, develops a sombre philosophy of History. "Gobineau's long-ignored work, disfigured by polemical misunderstandings, is only just beginning to find a wide audience. The books he brought back from his diplomatic missions in Persia (1855-1858 and 1861-1863), such as Trois ans en Asie and Nouvelles asiatiques, or in Greece (1864-1868), such as Souvenirs de voyage, all underpinned by the same philosophy as the Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines and Les Pléiades, make him one of the French egotists of the 19th century with the strangest accent in his arrogant singularity" (Jean Gaulmer). A very fine copy in brilliant bindings by Henri Noulhac. Ex-libris Alfred Clériceau. En français dans le texte, 271; Printing and the Mind of Man, (1963), 521.