Lou von Salomé

The daughter of an illustrious Russian general, Lou von Salomé left her home in the heart of Tsarist Russia to conquer intellectual Europe at the tender age of 18. Eventually settling in Germany, she became a best-selling novelist, a groundbreaking essayist, and a well-known literary critic. In addition to all this, Salomé was a real-life muse for some of the most brilliant men of her time. This biography tells the story of Salomé’s entire life and career, focusing on her young adulthood; celibate marriage with linguistics scholar Carl Friedrich Andreas; rumored affairs with Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainier Maria Rilke, and several other authors and poets; and her relationship with Sigmund Freud, which was marked most notably by their contrasting views of psychoanalysis.

Writer, producer, editor and researcher Julia Vickers works for the PBS program, Religion and Ethics. She lives in Germantown, Maryland.

Julia Vickers

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 217
Bibliographic Info: 5 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3606-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0073-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Preface      1
Introduction      3

PART I. GOD THE FATHER
1. A Russian General’s Daughter      9
2. Ecco Homo      18
3. Girl Genius      25
4. The Nietzsche Experience      32
5. Any Third Person      47
6. The Birth of a Tragedy      53
7. Divine Inspiration      59
8. The Mysterious Mr. Andreas      66

PART II. MUSES AND WRITERS
9. Marriage—and a Life      75
10. In Nietzsche’s Shadow      81
11. L’homme Eternal      87
12. The Inspiration of a Young Poet      105
13. Love and Other Difficulties      115
14. To Russia, with Love      130
15. Together, Alone      137
16. The Land in Between      145

PART III. FATHER FREUD
17. Oedipus Rex      157
18. Ego and Eros      164
19. The Beautiful Narcissist      172
20. That of Loss      178
21. Return to the All      188

Afterword      193
Chapter Notes      195
Bibliography      205
Index      207