Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography

13 Translator's Preface

include key passages because these passages had been expunged by
Nietzsche's sister. In Ecce Homo, for example, Nietzsche aimed a series of
barbs at his mother and sister, calling them a "consummate machine of
hell" of "unfathomable vulgarity." He went so far as to decry his cher-
ished theory of eternal recurrence because it might force him to reen-
counter his family members (6,268; EH "Why I Am So Wise" § 3).
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche justified her excision of these scathing
remarks by calling them the product of her brother's febrile delirium and
deeming it imperative that they be destroyed before he recovered. She
contended that her brother actually loved her dearly, citing as evidence his
affectionate references to her as "llama," an animal featured in one of
their favorite children's books. In fact, the book in question depicted the
llama in downright repulsive terms: 'The llama, as a means of defense,
squirts its spittle and half-digested fodder at its opponent."^3
Under the circumstances, I opted to provide new translations of all
Nietzsche passages in Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, with the single
exception of a poem that opens the fourth book of The Cay Science, for
which I have relied on Walter Kaufmann's felicitous rendering. To allow
for ready access to all passages in both the German critical edition and
any English editions, I have supplied bracketed references in the text
that provide the volume and page of the German critical edition as well
as the name and section number of each cited text.
The unique publication history of The Will to Power merits separate
attention. Although Nietzsche had planned to write a book called 'The
Will to Power," he never did so. After Nietzsche's death, his sister and his
friend Heinrich Köselitz, whom Nietzsche called Peter Gast, picked
through and contrived their own selection from Nietzsche's many jot-
tings, and published a book with this tide. The critical edition does not
recognize this compilation as a work by Nietzsche, and restores the mate-

(^3) Cited in Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974), p. 55.