Mon Autopsie: Ejaculations autobiographiques

Nice: Editions Athanor, 1938. First edition. 8vo, [20], 229, [2]pp. Text in French. Signed and inscribed by Spiess to [Ernest] Florian-Parmentier on the half title page. Perfect bound in paper wraps printed in black and red. Spine toned and worn, yapped edges a bit chipped. Some foxing, mainly to bottom edge. Very good. Laid in are are a postcard with the author's portrait, inscribed to same, and 3 ephemeral pieces regarding the publication.

Autobiographical work from the Swiss sexologist and philosopher, Camille Spiess (1878-1965).  Spiess was strongly influenced by Nietsche, and he became quite antisemitic after the German philosopher's article on German barbarism in Revue contemporain de Paris, in 1918.  

Spiess blended psychosexuality with philosophy, occultism, and nationalism to form his ideas of psycho-synthesis, and wrote on all things from astrology, theosophy, and mysticism, to poetry and politics.  He is perhaps most well known for his writings on homosexuality and andorgyny,  which he blended with his racialist beliefs in defining the "third" or "intermediate" sex as superior (roughly translated from his 1928 essay): 

"The Third Sex is the trinity of the perfect Man, who is at the same time himself, his wife, and his son."  

This presentation copy is inscribed to the author's friend, Ernest Florian-Parmentier (1879-1951), a writer and poet who published a work on Spiess in 1928, Camille Spiess et sa psycho-Synthèse.  

An interesting copy of this book from the author whose writing was very much in vogue during his lifetime.  

.