MY SISTER AND I by FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 1st 1951ed In DJ

My Sister And I

An Autobiographical Work

by
Friedrich Nietzsche

translated and introduced by
Dr Oscar Levy

Published by Boars Head Book, copyright New York 1951, First Edition. Having 254 indexed pages, bound in cloth 5.5 by 8.25 inch hard covers, still in original dust jacket showing moderate exterior wear and tearing, now protected within clear plastic wrapper, otherwise binding still internally strong, contents clean, and overall in fair to good condition.

(text taken from dust jacket...)

Boswell's LONDON JOURNAL - arriving out of two centuries of hiding-was last year's literary surprise. About sixty years separate the writing of MY SISTER AND I from the date of its publication. But its appearance is likely to shock as well as surprise.

My Sister and I is the autobiography of Nietzsche's soul as Ecce Homo was the autobiography of his intellect.

In Ecce Homo he told the thundering story of his intellectual and moral revolt against the bias and stupidity of centuries. In My Sister and he tells the dark and profoundly moving story of his emotional struggle which was warped and dominated by his unnatural relationship with his sister, Elisabeth.

It has been conjectured that Nietzsche wrote My Sister and I to avenge himself on his immediate family for the suppression of Ecce Homo whose contents were so disturbing to his mother and sister that they conspired to keep it from the public during his lifetime. Ecce Homo did not appear until 1908, eight years after the philosopher's death, when it was wrung from Elisabeth Nietzsche only with promises of vast sums in royalties.

My Sister and I has had to wait so much longer for publication because: It could not be published while any of its principals were still alive. Unable to trust his mother or sister, Nietzsche was forced to confide the manuscript to a fellow inmate of the asylum at Jena, who was about to be discharged as cured.

Nietzsche himself never knew if his book would see the light of day. How this has come about is described in Dr. Levy's INTRODUCTION.

The suppression of Ecce Homo by his sister Elisabeth and her mother was a dreadful blow to Nietzsche. It is considered possibly responsible for his madness, or for his simulated madness - as those would have it who believe that, when Nietzsche suggested in one of his books that a philosopher could gracefully retreat from the world by pretending insanity, he was predicting a course of conduct he eventually followed.

My Sister and I is, in a sense, an extension of Ecce Homo. Because, while My Sister and I reveals a family tragedy of towering sadness, it is also a philosophical discourse of vast importance to the understanding of the individual in our society.
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