Published in 1881, and revised in 1886 with a preface by Nietzsche himself, Dawn is situated in the evolution of his thought between the second part of Human, All Too Human (1880) and The Gay Science.
The work consists of five books and contains 575 paragraphs of very different lengths – from a few lines to several pages, but rarely more than three. The more developed parts, found especially in the earlier books, are short essays that suffice to outline one or another individual perspective without truly delving into the details of the argumentation.
On the other hand, the shorter excerpts are those that set the tone for the overall text. The concentration of thought and expression, the search for a dense and striking formula in certain phrases or in just one, lead towards the aphorism where, so to speak, the brief form of the essay contracts and focuses at its ultimate point, at its 'tip'.
[Excerpt from the introduction of the edition]
