Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was born in Röcken, Prussia, the son of a Lutheran pastor, and became professor of classical philology at Basel at twenty-four. Ill health forced his retirement in 1879; he then wrote, in rapid succession and largely unread, the books on which his influence rests — Human, All Too Human, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols. He collapsed in Turin in January 1889 and spent his last eleven years in the care of his mother and sister.