Nietzsche wrote in three shapes, and the three books here show all of them: a prose poem in four parts, a book of 296 numbered aphorisms, and three connected essays. Reading him in order is mostly a matter of choosing the shape you can hold.
The books are close together in time. Zarathustra was written between 1883 and 1885, Beyond Good and Evil followed in 1886, and On the Genealogy of Morality in 1887. All three date from the years when his health was failing and his readership had not yet arrived.
Word counts are for the editions here. None of them is long: the whole shelf is about eleven hours, which is less than a single Dickens novel.
Zarathustra came out in four parts between 1883 and 1885, which the site dates from the first; Beyond Good and Evil followed in 1886 and The Genealogy of Morals in 1887. The table is in publication order, but the argument runs the other way: the three essays of the Genealogy state most plainly what the earlier books dramatise, and they were written to be understood without the rest.
The counts explain the shape: Zarathustra is 90,000 words of parable and aphorism, Beyond Good and Evil 62,000, the Genealogy 52,000 in three essays. Begin with the Genealogy if you want the argument and with Zarathustra if you want the voice; either way you will read the third book faster than the first, because the sentences get shorter as he gets angrier.
Where to start
The Genealogy of Morals — Three essays with numbered sections and an explicit argument, so you can follow the reasoning rather than the voice. It is also the shortest of the three.
Friedrich Nietzsche in publication order
Numbered by the date on each book page. Word counts and reading times are for the text on this site.
| # | Year | Title | Form | Words | Reading time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1883 | Thus Spake Zarathustra | Prose poetry | 90,000 | 5 h | Written in four parts between 1883 and 1885. |
| 2 | 1886 | Beyond Good and Evil | Aphorisms | 62,000 | 3 h | Published in 1886, in 296 numbered sections. |
| 3 | 1887 | The Genealogy of Morals | Essays | 52,000 | 3 h | Three connected essays, published in 1887. |
| All three | 204,000 | 11 h |
How to read Friedrich Nietzsche
- Argument first. The Genealogy is the only one here built as a sustained argument. Read it before the aphorisms, which assume the same ideas in fragments.
- Then the aphorisms. Beyond Good and Evil has 296 sections, most of them a paragraph. It is designed for dipping, and it is the book that names most of his later themes.
- Zarathustra last. It is prophecy rather than argument, and it is much easier once you know what he is prophesying. At 90,000 words it is also the longest.
Each title links to a page with chapter summaries, the word count, reading time and free EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB downloads.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s shelf · Classic fiction · All authors · Books by decade.