The Birth of Tragedy was written between the summer of 1870 and the winter of 1871 (finished at Lugano, where I was living with the family of Field-Marshal Moltke).
The Thoughts out of Season between 1872 and the summer of 1875 (there were to have been thirteen; luckily my health said No!).
What you say about Schopenhauer as Educator gives me great pleasure. This little work serves me as a touchstone; he to whom it says nothing personal has probably nothing to do with me either. In reality it contains the whole plan according to which I have hitherto lived; it is a rigorous promise.
Human, all-too-Human, with its two continuations, summer of 1876-1879. The Dawn of Day, 1880. The Joyful Wisdom, January 1882. Zarathustra, 1883-1885 (each part in about ten days. Perfect state of "inspiration." All conceived in the course of rapid walks: absolute certainty, as though each sentence were shouted to one. While writing the book, the greatest physical elasticity and sense of power).
Beyond Good and Evil, summer of 1885 in the Upper Engadine and the following winter at Nice.
The Genealogy decided on, carried out and sent ready for press to the printer at Leipzig, all between July 10 and 30, 1887. (Of course there are also philologica of mine, but they do not concern you and me.)
I am now making an experiment with Turin; I shall stay here till June 5 and then go to the Engadine. The weather so far is wintry, harsh and unpleasant. But the town superbly calm and favourable to my instincts. The finest pavement in the world.
Sincere greetings from
Yours gratefully,
NIETZSCHE.
A pity I understand neither Danish nor Swedish.
Vita.—I was born on October 15, 1844, on the battlefield of Lützen. The first name I heard was that of Gustavus Adolphus. My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Niëzky); it seems the type has been well maintained, in spite of three generations of German mothers. Abroad I am usually taken for a Pole; this very winter the visitors' list at Nice entered me comme Polonais. I am told my head occurs in Matejko's pictures. My grandmother belonged to the Schiller-Goethe circles of Weimar; her brother was Herder's successor in the position of General Superintendent at Weimar. I had the good fortune to be a pupil of the venerable Pforta School, from which so many who have made a name in German literature have proceeded (Klopstock, Fichte, Schlegel, Ranke, etc., etc.). We had masters who would have (or have) done honour to any university. I studied at Bonn, afterwards at Leipzig; old Ritschl, then the first philologist in Germany, singled me out almost from the first. At twenty-two I was a contributor to the Litterarisches Centralblatt (Zarncke). The foundation of the Philological Society of Leipzig, which still exists, is due to me. In the winter of 1868-1869 the University of Basle offered me a professorship; I was as yet not even a Doctor. The University of Leipzig afterwards conferred the doctor's degree on me, in a very honourable way, without any examination, and even without a dissertation. From Easter 1869 to 1879 I was at Basle; I was obliged to give up my rights as a German subject, since as an officer (Horse Artillery) I should have been called up too frequently and my academic duties would have been interfered with. I am none the less master of two weapons, the sabre and the cannon—and perhaps of a third as well.... At Basle everything went very well, in spite of my youth; it sometimes happened, especially with candidates for the doctor's degree, that the examinee was older than the examiner.