,14=/,15=#,23=%,24==> xi Preface confine myself here to those who helped me with the earlier period. The earliest, perhaps, was the late William Eccles, whom I met during his retirement in Ireland. Engelmann's friends, the members of the Olmu$3tz Circle, naturally occupy an early place also: the late Heinrich Groag, with whom I had many fascinating discussions, and Dr Max Zweig, whom I last heard of alive at a great age in Jerusalem. Soon after comes Direktor Fritz Parak, who was a fellow-prisoner at the end of the First War. For the period immediately after that I owe an enormous amount of knowledge, freely imparted, to the late Rudolf Koder. In the case of none of these heirs or family members or friends who survive can I be sure of complete agreement with my view of Wittgenstein_for a view it is that is here presented: a mixture, as Goethe said of his account of his own life, of fiction, that is to say of imagination, and truth. I do not here pretend to publish a reference book containing all that is known (and nothing but what is known) of Wittgenstein. Rather I attempt to present his life (part of it, at first) as an intelligible whole, as something capable of being seen as a unity, as the development of just such a Daimon as Goethe describes in a favourite poem of Wittgenstein's: I have made it the epigraph of this volume (and am very grateful to Anvil Press Poetry Ltd for permission to use Michael Hamburger's translation). I believe that Wittgenstein wanted to see his own life in such a way: what I have to describe is as much the character he tried to create as the character he was (if the two are really distinct). I also believe that he meant his life to be written: the sort of records of his state of mind that he kept reveal this. Later he even leaves instructions (to a literary executor, as it were) written in his private code. So I do not feel constrained by the feeling of Wittgenstein's brother (expressed to Professor Hayek) that biography simply means indiscretion. Of course, it is another question (and not for me to answer) whether I am, objectively, the right person to write that life. I should say perhaps that the apparent intrusions of my own opinions, of my judgements or comments on Wittgenstein or his family or other matters, are a literary device, copied to some extent from the chorus in Greek tragedy. The conventional views given serve to throw into relief the individuality of the protagonist and even of his family. Subjectively I cannot regret the long years spent on the task. A variety of men and cities known can never merely bore, but I believe I have been exceptionally fortunate in both. For this first volume I seemed transported into an earlier age: at Trinity and in Central Europe I was able to relive in some way the experiences of the generation of my parents. And for good measure, there was also the interest of a particular refinement of German culture to be assimilated. In so far as that proved possible for me, I owe it to many Austrian friends. Some already mentioned became such friends: others I knew already_Emmy Wellesz, xii Wittgenstein: A Life recently dead at a great age, introduced me to Stifter, to Grillparzer, to Keller, and to much else. Magda Minio-Paluello (also recently dead) and Dr Leo Ungar, her brother, gave me some understanding of the Vienna of Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos. If a measure of the stimulus it has afforded me comes through also to the reader, I shall have achieved some success and he will be in a better position to make up his own mind about Ludwig Wittgenstein. For information about and involving Bertrand Russell I am indebted to the late Dora Russell, to Lady Katharine Tait, to Professor Conrad Russell, and to the Bertrand Russell Archive at McMaster University, particularly to the late William Ready and to Mr Kenneth Blackwell. Letters from Russell to Lady Ottoline Morrell are quoted by kind permission of the Library of the University of Texas at Austin. At Trinity College, Cambridge, I am indebted for information about the period before the First World War to Dr Philip Gaskell (former Librarian), and among survivors of the period (no longer such, alas) to the first Lord Adrian, Sir J.R.M. Butler, Professor H. Hollond, and Professor J.E. Littlewood. The late Hester Adrian and her daughter Lady (Richard) Keynes helped with information about David Pinsent (extracts from whose diary were also made available to me in Trinity College Library). The late Dorothy Moore and Dr Paul Levy told me much about G.E. Moore and Dr Levy about the Bloomsbury circle generally. King's College Library (Dr Penelope Bulloch was there then) made Keynes's correspondence available to me, and I also received information from the late Sir Geoffrey Keynes: King's and Lord Kahn kindly gave me permission to publish. Dr Joachim Schulte generously read a draft and the final version with an especial eye for points of German idiom and literature. For constant advice on literary, publishing, and library matters I am happy to thank an old friend, Mr John Commander. At Duckworth's Mr Colin Haycraft, also an old friend, has shown himself capable of combining encouragement with infinite patience. The Ministry of Defence Library in London, the Kriegsarchiv and the Innenministerium in Vienna, the Wittgenstein Museum at Kirchberg am Wechsel in Lower Austria, and their staffs have constantly assisted me. Without Bodley and Blackwell and his own college an Oxford man would be lost: I believe my college has provided particularly good facilities_leave, a good library, computing facilities, and excellent secretaries, Miss Patricia Lloyd (who typed most of this) and Mrs Fleur Walsh and Miss Jane Fewings who made it ready for the computer and helped in many other ways. The actual work of Mr Stephen Cope and Mrs Alison Cope in preparing the material for Lasercomp leaves me awestruck. I began with Dr Griffin and am happy to end thanking Mrs James Griffin for her advice on that system. B.F.McG. Queen's College, Oxford, July 1987