Friedrich Nietzsche, the son and grandson of devout Lutheran ministers, was born in Röcken, Prussia. His father died when Nietzsche was 4, and his mother, grandmother, and aunts raised him. At school he excelled in all disciplines, but most of all loved classic literature and philosophy, especially Plato. He was admitted to the University of Bonn but found both the students and professors too superficial for his liking, and he transferred to Leipzig. There he encountered his two greatest inspirations: the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the music of Richard Wagner. After publishing a few highly regarded articles, he finished his doctorate at Leipzig, and then accepted a professorship at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He was still only 24.
Nietzsche became one of Richard Wagner's closest friends and confidants. With the success and acclaim of his books, he resigned from the university and became a full-time writer, producing over a dozen brilliant works, such as Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-1885), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Genealogy of Morals (1887), The Antichrist
(1895), and The Will to Power (1901).
