Private Notebooks

“Translated into English for the first time, these diaries provide a glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a great philosopher.” – Anil Gomes - The Guardian“Perloff has done a great service in bringing this volume to fruition. Her inclusion of remarks from the recto pages is judicious and will engage the non-specialist reader… Her translation here has real presence: emotional ubiety.” – Ian Ground - Times Literary Supplement“These notebooks do reveal that in a sense Wittgenstein’s philosophy was a response to his circumstances: but only by providing him with the vital means to escape from them into his own mind – an extraordinary achievement.” – Thomas Nagel - New Statesman“Merely by reminding us that, for all his saintliness, Wittgenstein was human, all too human, these beautiful Notebooks bring him that bit closer to us.” – Christopher Bray - The Tablet

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was a world-renowned Austrian-British philosopher. Born in Vienna, Austria, Marjorie Perloff is the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor Emerita of Humanities at Stanford University, and the author of sixteen books.