Discover rare photographic glimpses of pioneering egoists such as Dora Marsden and Benjamin R. Tucker, and delve into the visionary project to produce a Braille edition of Max Stirner’s magnum opus for the indomitable Helen Keller. Unearth a plethora of fascinating artifacts pertaining to Malfew Seklew, and be riveted by the astonishing revelation of Ragnar Redbeard’s brief yet impactful foray as a Canadian Socialist Provocateur.

This sixth issue of Der Geist is sure to delight and offend, but most of all, serve as an essential philosophical reference work for centuries to come.

DER GEIST: The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945 | ISSUE 6 | Winter 2023
Paperback, 212 pages, $15
ISBN 978-1-944651-29-9, ISSN 2639-5339

Der Geist, (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor  2

1. Max Stirner   7

Max Stirner’s Anarchist Gospel | A Dutch Review of Stirner’s Work | Anarchist Black Dragon | Max Stirner vs. Wahrheit-Sucher | “Celine Adele Marillier” | Pity and the Future | Max Stirner and the Grisette | Steven T. Byington’s Triple Score

2. Malfew Seklew  29

On “Bérnard’s Tour” | Minister Mocks Malfew  | Stern Critique of Christian Socialist  | Seklew Asks: Nietzsche to Blame?  | Social Aristocrat Socialist Secretary | A Freak Among Reformers  | No Guide for Anybody | Proletarians in Purgatory | No Justice for Malfew Seklew  | “We’re All More or Less Nutty” | Not Seeking Work  | Seklew Scolds Simpoleons, Supplies Sample Shilling Sericine Silk Set | No Detail Too Small!

3. Ragnar Redbeard   51

Redbeard in Canada | Desmond Selling George  | Give the New Hand a Show! | A.D. in the O.E.D.  | A Bogus Book | Australian Socialist Drinking Club | Redbeard’s Rough Stuff |“We Understand the Redbeard Philosophy” | Voima On Oikeus | Etc.

4. Dora Marsden  95

Dora Marsden for the Prosecution | The Freewomen of New York | Dora Marsden, unser aller Mutter  | Dora Marsden Ephemera | Rare Portraits

5. Benjamin DeCasseres   107

Emmeline Pankhurst | Pyrrhonism and Acatalepsy | Balzac | The Borrowed Mirror

6. Friedrich Nietzsche   117

Nietzsche and a Braille Stirner for Hellen Keller | “Will Nietzsche Come Into Vogue…” | The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche | Alexander Tille Reads Egoism

7. Enzo Martucci   135

A Sketch of Martucci | An Excerpt from The Red Sect | Martucci on Stirner

8. Free Spirits  159

Peter Lamborn Wilson Has Passed  | Hakim Bey: Real and Unreal | Vox Populi Vox Dei | Thompson at Rudolf Steiner Hall | Speakers’ Corner Anthology | Among the Anarchists | The True Comarade | Is This What You Call “Living?” | The Thirteenth Paragraph | Greeves Fisher, A Sketch | Dominance vs. Egoism | More Individualism | Individualism and Property | Why I am a Right-Wing Anarchist | Opening and Closing the Dil Pickle | Christmas a Joke! | “I” a poem  | “I GO” a poem| A Letter to the Editors of Freedom | Enrico Arrigoni Bibliography | Photo of Benjamin R. Tucker | About the Editors

WHO WANTS TO BE “FREE”?

by James J. Martin

I am indicting a society which has no more concept of freedom and responsibility than it has of a twelve-legged dog. Is it ‘free enterprise’ which is to occupy the trial seat before socialism and communism?

Is there anyone engaged in making profits by the present system who is willing to face the consequences of complete free enterprise– the reduction of all price through the most rigorous competition? Why no, he merely wishes the free-enterprise system to operate in his favor, and is as willing as the collectivist to employ the fantastic superstructure of law and police in prohibiting any freedom of action which endangers his privileged position.

Who wants ‘free enterprise’ in the steel and other heavy industries? Who wants ‘free competition’ with the producers of the rest of the world? What banker is willing to tolerate any concept but that of the ‘national’ system? Would he willingly face the competition of free banking?

The free enterprise of which special interest groups bray is that of the right to open a banana stand or shoe shine parlor, and function within the rigid rules of the atrophied system about them… Witness the struggle of a Tucker in penetrating the automobile manufacturing priesthood. Where can one turn to escape the hurdles of merely obtaining credit in order to enter the economy on a level higher than thread-peddling? Advocates of free enterprise are hypocrites until a breach is made in the above mentioned closed circles.

The farmer is always cited as an example of unregenerate free enterprise, but where is there any campaign against the state crutch of subsidies, shouldering of the mortgage structure, protection with law and police of land monopoly for the perpetuation of tenantry, and other serious deviations from the principle of freedom!

The great majority of people accept the current game and its rules without query, though there is a strong case to show the legal origin of the inequity in the system. With most people the complaint is the way the score is being compiled. This they want their politicians to bring into balance. Thus the politician has rapidly been acquiring a non-propertied power-holding stock in the ‘system’.

The great dodge of our time is “society”, a sociological dream-concept, in whose name we dump our responsibility as individuals. “Society”, we say, is to blame. for any evils which beset people, yet an investigation would reveal a number of real humans with much guilt attached. Our spirit-sickness also calls on the government as the Hebrews called upon Jehovah in the desert, and denies the fact of individual life, liberty of action and its consequence, responsibility.

Perhaps a few will embrace decentralism, but the vast majority will, when the time comes, quietly crawl under a warm blanket of collectivism in their delusion that this is the way to security. Yet ‘salvation’ is even an individual matter, and those to whom freedom and responsibility still mean something can even now construct for themselves a passably satisfying existence in this indifferent environment.

Dear Editors,

Bill Dwyer gives a substantially correct report of what I recounted of my experiences as a member of a printing union ‘chapel’ (Freedom, 19.12.70). What he deduces from it, however, is wide of the mark.

Firstly, I do not maintain that ‘the worker (whoever he is) is fitted only for obedience’. What I do maintain is that most workers (like most other people) have supported and defended authoritarianism and servility in the past, do so in the present and that, on the evidence of this, they will do so in the future. Every social upheaval so far has resulted in either the survival of the old authority or the creation of a new, and as far as I can see this is the inevitable outcome of all organized collectivities—no matter what names they are given. Bill Dwyer, like his utopian forebears, has confused ‘the worker’ as he is with ‘the worker’ as he would like him to be. He is, if you will pardon the philosophical pun, trying to deduce an ‘is’ from an ‘ought’.

Because, however, this has been and is true of most workers, it by no means follows that all workers are incapable of transcending authoritarianism and becoming anarchists. A small minority in each generation do just this, as do a small minority of ‘non-workers’. (Anarchism is an individual, not a class, phenomenon.) Secondly, what ‘weakness’ did Francis Ellingham show in my social pessimism? The only ‘evidence’ that he could offer to refute my view was that he believes that mankind can create the kind of world he would like to see by means of some unexplained (and, I suspect, unexplainable) process of concurrent and contagious spontaneity of the sort that will result in what Ellingham wants it to result in. Of course, any millenarian sect can claim the viability of their goal on this kind of ‘evidence’. From Plymouth Brethren to Koreshanists—all can view the world as their oyster. More tough-minded folk, however, would demand better credentials than those so far offered.

Thirdly, I cannot see how I am being ‘insulting’ to point out what I think are the facts of the case. (F.E. is fond of derogatory labelling too. Because I have said most people appear to want a government of some kind or other he accuses me of saying they are ‘stupid’. Not so. Some of the most ardent governmentalists are very intelligent persons. Intelligence is no more a monopoly of anarchists than is stupidity of anarchists.) If I claimed that on the basis of what I knew about Bill Dwyer I thought it unlikely he could run a mile in three minutes would he regard that as being ‘insulting’? Emotive [illegible] of this kind is simply begging the question.

Finally, I have never claimed that ‘no change’ is possible. The world I live in now is in many ways not the world I lived in twenty years ago, nor is it the kind of world I will live in twenty years from now. My point is that what changes will take place are, on the basis of what is and has been in the sphere of social constraint, unlikely to bring about anarchy as a universal condition. For this reason anarchist individualists, such as I claim to be, will shape their perspectives accordingly. Anarchism as an individualism can survive such a reshaping. I am quite prepared to admit that those who regard anarchism as a socialism will reject my view, since their ideas cannot.

Yours Sincerely,
S.E. Parker
London, W.2

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

DER GEIST issue five features the first publication of original research, and archival materials thought lost. Steven T. Byington (first English translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner); Thomas Common (first English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche); Georgia Replogle (first English-language journal on egoism); Malfew Seklew (the Laughing Philosopher); Arthur Desmond (author of a notorious book); Dora Marsden, S. E. Parker and more.

DER GEIST (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
ISSUE 5
Spring 2022
Paperback, 206 pages, fifteen dollars
ISBN 978-1944651244
ISSN 2639-5339

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor

1. Steven T. Byington

A Proofreader Looks Back | The Human Cutworm | Photo of Steven T. Byington | Biographical Note | Selected Bibliography

2. Thomas Common

Review of Survival of the Fittest | The Silent Isle: Finding the Gravesite of Thomas Common | A Memorial | Selected Bibliography

3. Ragnar Redbeard

Bertha McNamara’s Reflections on Arthur Desmond | Illustration from The Worker | John Ploughman and His Letter | The Brutalitarian: A Journal for the Sane and the Strong | Lion’s Paw Banned | Confessions of an Anarchist

4. Max Stirner / The Ego And His Own

Donald Rooum’s “Eigenheit” | An Early Literary Portrait of Max Stirner

5. Dora Marsden

Brainy Beauties | Private Places | Lover of Freedom

6. Malfew Seklew

Dan O’Brien, Social Supercrat | Victor Grayson, M.P.: A Rhapsody on a Reality | Spencella Wilkesbarre’s What Women Ought to Know | Stanley Simpoleon Says Seklew Stand-In | William Henry Powell and Malfew Seklew | Poetic Beer Drinker | A Remarkable Character | Two from Day Book

7. Free Spirits

Photo of Georgia Replogle | Photo of S. E. Parker | Letter from Denise Juin | Interview with S. E. Parker | Sophie Leppel’s “Pig Eaters Challenge” | Herbert Roseman on Laurance Labadie | Leedz Anarkyst: Greevz Fisher (1845-1931) | Holbrook Jackson on Nietzsche | Index of Der Geist | From the Library | Index to The Lumberjack / Voice of the People | A Thank-You to Patrons | Select Titles Available | About the Editors

It was during that time that I learned more about the family life of Mr. Parker. How he purposefully abandoned his child to the care of the state, and his wife Pat’s life-long struggles with mental disorders. More and more I would learn of the devastating impact that it would have on Leon, and how that would in turn affect Natoya.

I state, without equivocation, that I believe Sidney E. Parker was a terrible father to his only child. A child he never wanted and ultimately abandoned, with seemingly little compunction, to the care of a system he had spent his philosophical and political life railing against. While letters would be exchanged between parents and child, they would largely be estranged from one another for their lives. In early communication with me, Leon stated that he had not had any contact with his mother or father for 38 years. I encourage the study of the life and work of Sidney E. Parker as a thinker. As a man, I can yet make no further public assessment of him.

In September of 2016 I was informed by Leon Parker that Pat was being moved to an assisted living facility. I arranged to have two associates go to Sidney and Pat’s former home and help rescue all worthwhile materials with Leon. I was told that anything not saved that day would be destroyed by the Housing Council. Leon assured me that he would see to it that I received the saved materials for my archive pertaining to the history of Egoism.

Leon assured me, on several occasions during the process, that the materials we saved were rightfully his daughter Natoya’s legacy, and she was the sole person to determine what was done with them. After the papers and letters were rescued, Leon decided that he wanted to work on the material himself before sending it to me. I was displeased, but I tried to continue to support the preservation of S.E. Parker’s work.

Through the course of the preservation work, I began to receive erratic emails from Leon from time-to-time, but I did my best to work from afar, expanding the website I established and not being dragged into Leon’s personal issues. After receiving a threatening message from Leon Parker, I ceased communication with him.

In 2017 I learned that Leon had, once again, committed a sex crime with a minor. He was formally charged and arrested. Natoya and I waited to hear what his sentence was. In March 2018 I contacted Natoya and learned that Leon was indeed convicted of this sex crime against minors and would be going to prison. Further, in 5 days she would be going to Leon’s “flat” to retrieve some of Leon’s items before the dwelling was cleared out by the local Housing Council. Once more, the work of S.E. Parker was in danger of being destroyed due to abandonment.

After working out details with Natoya, I booked a flight to a hotel in London. The morning of the second “rescue” I met with many of Leon’s former co-workers who were there to rescue his record collection and other items of value. Everyone present seemed to know who I was and what I was doing there. We spoke plainly about my rescuing the material and Sid’s life and ideas. I finally met Natoya for the first time that day, and there was no sign that my presence or actions were unknown or unwelcome. The opposite was clearly true. And so, I arranged, at further personal expense, to have all the material carefully packed and shipped to my home in the United States, where I have been slowly working on both archiving and reproducing it.

Throughout this entire process, I have only been above-board, direct, and open with everyone involved in creating and expanding the Sidney E. Parker Archives. I have had no reason to act otherwise. I have written at great length about all of the above in an essay published in the Winter 2018 issue of Der Geist, a journal I co-edit. I would recommend anyone interested refer to that 16-page essay.

I am in legal possession of all items in the S.E. Parker Archives and believe that entrusting any of it to Leon’s care would ensure its inevitable loss. My work on the Sidney E. Parker Archives has the full support of Natoya, Sidney E. Parker’s granddaughter and heir to his work.

In addition to ending direct communication with Leon Parker, I decided not to make any public statements about the personal harassment, but over the last day I have been contacted by friends and associates informing me that they are now receiving disconcerting and accusatory messages on their social media accounts. In light of this information, and Leon’s subsequent revisionism of the facts, I felt it was time to publicly address this situation. I remain in contact with Natoya and will take any necessary steps to ensure that the archive and legacy of Sidney E. Parker is properly preserved, propagated and promoted.

Kevin I. Slaughter
Archivist, sidparker.com
December 19th, 2021

MORE INDIVIDUALISM

EDITOR: —I would like to respond to the criticism of my letter in the March issue leveled by R. Yves Breton in the May issue.

First, I did NOT state, nor even imply, that under ALL circumstances “…ownership of what one uses and produces can only be realized by collective ownership of the factory by THE WORKER OF THAT FACTORY, no more nor less.” I prefaced that remark with: (which R. Yves did NOT quote) “…it seems that, for the worker (note the context) the individualist goal of personal property can only be realized by some sort of active struggle with the system. Given that industrial production is necessarily a collective venture….” (again, note the context, R. Yves). How, in a factory geared to a minute division of labor, assembly lines, and massive machines, a worker can INDIVIDUALLY own his or her own tools, as E. Armand suggested, is beyond my comprehension (do the workers dismantle the machines in the evening and take the pieces with them to their separate homes?). Of course there is much individualistic argument in favor of dismantling, permanently, the stupefying factory system, and restoring (perhaps with more sophisticated individual tools) craft production. Given an Anarchistic society this would be possible, but at present we are prisoners of production systems we do not own nor control. Either we control the workshops or abandon them and recreate an entire productive system outside the present one. Certainly for most workers who cannot afford to quit their jobs, the first is the only alternative at this time. Should workers succeed in such a take-over, I would still not maintain that a free society is necessarily reached. Significantly, R. Yves Breton did not go on to quote my conclusion: “But no one should be forced to participate in the collective, nor be banned from individual enterprise.”

I may be guilty of identifying workers’ control of the workplace with syndicalism, as the latter term implies FEDERATION of industries as well as factory autonomy. Still there have been individualists who saw in syndicalism “A valid form of regaining one’s property”—not the ONLY valid form, as R. Yves seems to imply as my meaning.

In this context, I would mention Malfew Seklew: “…I am an iconoclastic, atheistic, anarchistic, hedonistic individualist, with the social instinct well developed, and with syndicalistic solutions for the problem of poverty.” (“Minus One” #34). Oscar Wilde and Guy Aldred advocated forms of collective ownership in order to lift the burden of material concerns from the stifled individualities of the working and exploiting classes. An ideal, perhaps, but an individualism that cannot include social cooperation is an undeveloped individualism in my opinion. Even the most extreme individualist, Max Stirner, advocated collective take-overs of The means of production, even communistic arrangements within the context of voluntary associations to better satisfy our HUMAN needs and give us time to realize our UNIQUE desires. In America, Emma Goldman and John Beverly Robinson, both influenced by Stirner, were able to believe that, economically, the interests of working people were similar enough to justify voluntary, collective, and federated running of all industries. Besides, even the skills and tools needed to survive alone, outside of society, were given to us by society itself. The benefits of human association and cooperation appeal to my interests as an individual. There is much egoistic reason to favor collective arrangements to satisfy common needs, rather than reliance upon often wasteful or exploitive competition.

“Finally, as regards competition once more, it has a continued existence by this very means, that all do not attend to their affair and come to an understanding with each other about it. Bread is a need of all the inhabitants of a city; therefore they might easily agree on setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave the furnishing of the needful to the competitive. Just so meat to the butchers, wine to the wine-dealers, etc.”

Peter Kropotkin? No, Max Stirner! Individualism IS the basis of true cooperation; as this primal Anarchist par excellence goes on to say:

“If I do not trouble myself about MY affair, I must be CONTENT with what it pleases others to vouchsafe me.” (The Ego and His Own, page 275).

—MARK SULLIVAN. (NEW YORK)

The newest issue of Der Geist, the journal of historical Egoism, is here. Rare and unpublished works from the first century of egoism-the philosophy of Max Stirner.

from: Underworld Amusements or from Amazon.com: US | MX | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT

This issue of Der Geist includes rare reprints of egoist history. These include blow-by-blow accounts of Dora Marsden in her street-fighting phase, lost transcriptions of J. William Lloyd saved from the darkness by individualist feminist Wendy McElroy, the philosophical and physical wanderings of the laughing philosopher Malfew Seklew, and more. This issue of Der Geist also includes original inquiries into egoist history. These include a history of the Radical Book Shop of Chicago, and the heretofore undocumented bands of iron that link the Industrial Workers of the World (the “Wobblys”) and Ragnar Redbeard’s book Might is Right.

Sections:

1. Dora Marsden
2. J. William Lloyd
3. Malfew Seklew
4. Laurance Labadie
5. Max Stirner
6. Free Spirits
7. Ragnar Redbeard

French Wikipedia says of Armand: “Arrested on August 6, 1907, he was sentenced to five years in prison on May 9, 1908, for complicity in issuing counterfeit money. In 1911, he signed the Petit Manuel anarchiste individualist and he married Denise Rougeault, who financially helped him.”

Denise Rougeault married Lucien-Ernest Juin and became “D. Juin”.

Madame Juin details their gift of papers to the Institute of Social History, when they had a branch in Paris (interesting aside: this branch was broken into in November 1936, where documents of Trotsky were stolen, most probably by agents of Stalin’s secret service). The International Institute of Social History (IISH) was officially established on November 25, 1935 and serves as one of the world’s leading research institutes on social history.

Also of interest is the mention of the journal Balanced Living. This was the magazine from Ralph Borsodi’s  School of Living. Edited by Mildred Loomis, it was in also in 1962, shortly after Robert Anton Wilson begins co-editing it, that the title was changed to A Way Out, a phrase from the introduction to his book Flight from the City. His previous book, This Ugly Civlilization, recently republished by Underworld Amusements).

This letter was among the papers in the Sidney E. Parker Archives. The SEP Archives contain the papers, publications and ephemera from Sidney E. Parker, British archivist and author.

The letter below was translated by historian Shawn P. Wilbur (who operates Libertarian Labyrinth), after we posted it in his “Anarchist French-Translation Workshop” group. Wilbur is a tireless archivist and historian and we would enjoy it if our work helps his cause as much as his helps ours.

D. Juin
April 15, 1962
Dear Comrade,
Please excuse my delay in replying to you: I have been very busy preparing everything that E. Armand promised to hand over to the Institute of Social History in Paris several years ago. Last Friday they took delivery of the books, pamphlets, magazines, etc. I must now carefully check all that remains and I certainly have enough of it for several weeks.
Several days ago, I prepared for you a package of publications. I add two copies of:

Les individualistes et le fait économique [E. Armand, editions de l’en dehors] La Liberté. Nous allons. [Albert Libertad, editions de l’en dehors] Pierre Chardon. [Pierre Chardon, sa vie, son action, sa pensée, editions de l’en dehors?]

As for the « Bandits tragiques » [possibly the pamphlet “Illégalisme anarchiste”] I no longer have even a single copy. As for the other pamphlets that you desire: Le Culte de la Charogne [Albert Libertad] — Le travail antisociale et les mouvements utiles [Albert Libertad] — Le refus de service militaire et sa véritable signification [E. Armand, Éditions de L’Ère nouvelle], it is impossible for me to satisfy your request; they have sold out long ago. If, by chance, in the course of my tidying up, I discover one of these pamphlets, or several, I will hasten to see that they reach you, (but I would not count too much on it.)
Armand exchanged “L’Unique” with “Balanced Living,” but we no longer receive it.
Naturally, you owe me nothing for the publications that I am sending you. It is much too small a matter.
I wish you great success in your propaganda work and beg you to believe in my very cordial feelings.
D. Juin.

The New En Marge (2018) is the occasional Newsletter of the Sidney E. Parker Archives, a project of the Union of Egoists, it is also a journal within a journal as The New En Marge Vol. 2 No. 1 is also an issue of Stand Alone (2016).

Sidney E. Parker was a philosopher and historian of Individualist Anarchism and Egoism, as inspired by the ideas of Max Stirner. His writing appeared in Freedom (UK), The Match (US) and other journals. Parker edited a series of anarchist and egoist journals, most notably Minus One (1963) and Ego (1983). He spoke to humanist, anarchist and freethought groups all his life.

The New En Marge reveals and details some of the archival work being done to preserve and convey the life and work of Mr. Parker. We ask that the journal remain print only, and the contents not revealed online.

There are only two ways to obtain The New En Marge:

1. Become a supporter of the Union of Egoists project at $9.99 per month or more on Patreon.

2. Send $3 US cash* and a mailing address to:

Union of Egoists
attn: En Marge
444 Maryland Ave. #7940
Essex, MD 21221

*Intl. customers please inquire.

The editors of UnionOfEgoists.com have completed a major new egoist book, and surely one that has proven as or even more controversial than Stirner’s Einzige, but containing largely the same message. The Authoritative Edition of Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard is now available after years of work. The variant text of the five editions published in the author’s lifetime have been harmonized into one volume. In addition, this new volume contains thousands of previously undocumented citations and a never-before-published index. It features a new introduction by Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan.

“Might is Right—a book that all rebels will want to read, especially in these days that ‘try mens souls,’ but with the philosophy of which, in full, no social revolutionist will agree. But the book will force you to think and it will show you in naked words how the mighty rule.”
—The Voice of the People (Industrial Workers of the World) 1914

“It is surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere… Redbeard surely undermined the largest part of the rationale to which conventional society appeared to be anchored.”
—James J. Martin, Laurance Labadie 1978

“Erratic, inspiring, infuriating, a mixture of individualistic sense and collective nonsense, it outlines a case for ‘social darwinism’ that is one of the frankest and most powerful I have ever seen.”
—Sidney E. Parker, “Ragnar Redbeard and the Right of Might” The Storm 1982–’83

Might is Right is a book of action and not belief. It is poetry, not a platform. Since the first edition in 1896, Might is Right has inspired those across a dynamic political and philosophical spectrum. The consistent core of the work is this: the individual is against everything but the self, and any means of proliferation of the self is the only good. Might is the power of the individual, and that is the only foundation of Right.

Published in 1896, Might is Right went through five editions during the lifetime of Ragnar Redbeard, who had just moved to America, escaping the law in Australia. Every one of these had a plethora of revisions and reversions, many subtly coloring the meaning of the text, others leaving literal gaps on the printed page where type was physically removed from the printing plates.

Now Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition not only reveals one authoritative text, but adds thousands of citations and notations to reveal a much greater story underneath the text. Every literary reference is cited, every name is given biographical sketch. Redbeard’s voice is given echo in some of the contemporary and historical figures that his ideas of an amoral philosophical egoism are in accord with.

“Thou shalt give thy heart to no god, for that is idiocy; neither shalt thou love thy neighbors as thyself, for that is madness.”
—Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition 5.1:4