Nietzsche

“This translation of Salom’s early portrait of Nietzsche the man and her insightful study of the poetic, psychological, religious, and mystical aspects of his thought is long overdue… Salom’s account of the life, feelings, and thoughts of the man whose proposal of marriage she rejected is dramatic… [It] skirts the more technical aspects of his thought but faithfully presents his psychological observations and his poetic-mystical way of thinking and writing.” – Choice “Russian-born woman of letters Lou Salome (1861-1937) had a brief but tempestuous relationship with Nietzsche in 1882. In 1894, while Nietzsche languished in madness, Salome published Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken , here translated for the first time into English. Salome attempts to show how Nietzsche’s philosophy can be seen as a reflection of his psychology. She construes his philosophical development as driven by a series of illnesses and recoveries, his later philosophy as mystical, and his madness as the inevitable result of his philosophizing. The book will interest scholars as the first full-scale account of Nietzsche’s thought.” – Library Journal “Salom set out to write a very specific book on Nietzsche, one which attempts to present the ‘thought-experience’ of Friedrich Nietzsche… Her text succeeds superbly… Salom’s book remains one of the rare instances of intelligent consideration given to Nietzsche’s philosophy.” – Paul Wessels, Cape Times Newspaper

Lou Salome (1861-1937) was the author of Ibsen’s Heroines, Freud, Rilke, and other books. Siegfried Mandel was a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and the author of Nietzsche and the Jews: Exaltation and Denigration, Rainer Maria Rilker: The Poetic Instinct, and other books.