Description

Frankfurt am Main: Literarische Anstalt (J. Rutten), 1851. Text in GermanFirst edition. Octavo (19 x 12.5 cm). XVI, 248 pp. With three full-page lithographic plates (including frontispiece), depicting bees, locusts, and aquatic organisms. Text in German. Bound in contemporary green marbled boards with green quarter leather spine, decoratively stamped with six gilt horizontal rules and gilt-stamped title ("Thierstaaten"). Spine lightly rubbed; boards show some scuffing and edge chipping. A sticker reading "Printed in Germany" (in English) is affixed to the lower corner of the front paste-down. Endpapers foxed; interior generally clean and sound, with plates well preserved. First edition of Carl Vogt's zoological and satirical treatise on insect societies, written in the aftermath of the failed 1848 revolutions in Germany. Vogt (1817 - 1895), a noted zoologist and materialist thinker with ties to Marx and Bakunin, briefly served in the Frankfurt Parliament before fleeing to Switzerland. In this volume, he draws sharp and humorous comparisons between insect social structures and human political systems - particularly those of reactionary Germany. His discussion of the "Bee State," "Locusts and Related Rabble," and "Bladder-Bearers" blends natural observation with veiled critiques of contemporary governance. A significant work of 19th-century scientific materialism and political satire. Cited in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 40, p. 185.