Originally published: London : Hutchinson, 2002

Includes bibliographical references (pages 577-654) and index

A strongly pastoral tradition -- Naumburg -- A formidable scholastic fortress -- Three Naumburg bards -- The final years at Pforta -- With the beer-drinkers of the Rhine -- Arthur Schopenhauer's fateful spell -- Philologist and cannoneer -- A momentous encounter -- From Leipzig to Basel -- Tribschen -- An intoxicating friendship -- A bitter taste of warfare -- Wild hopes and fantasies -- The birth of tragedy -- The end of an idyll -- Future-philosophy and after-philology -- A first essay in polemics -- The uses and abuses of history -- Forging a philosophical hammer -- A tense apotheosis -- Winter in Sorrento -- A book for free spirits -- The wanderer and his shadow -- From Morgenröte to Messina -- Lou Salomé -- Incipit tragoedia -- Storm and stress -- Finita è la commedia -- The birth of Zarathustra -- 'Oh, my son Zarathustra!' -- 'Midday and eternity!' -- Knights and ladies of the Gaya Scienza -- 'Very black and squid-like' -- The genealogy of morals -- The marvels of Turin -- The 'cave-bear' of Sils-Maria -- The collapse -- The aftermath

"Friedrich Nietzsche was, with little doubt, the most intensely personal, egotistically subjective, and fearlessly provocative thinker the Western world has yet seen. The protean diversity of his affirmations make him one of the most seminal and influential of modern philosophers, yet his often paradoxical statements can be properly understood only within the context of his restless, almost nomadic life. Curtis Cate's new biography, written for the layperson rather than the academic, goes far towards clarifying Nietzsche's ideas and the reactions they elicited. The author does equal justice to the musical as well as philosophical influences to which Nietzsche was subjected, the subtle working of his incomparable mind, and the acute physical suffering he combated from his adolescence until his final mental collapse of January 1889. Cutting through the academic jargon and complexities to clear away stereotypical prejudices that have accumulated around Nietzsche's name, Cate reveals a Nietzsche whose ideas continue to have prophetic relevance and incredible vibrancy today."--Jacket