The travel diary of a philosopher

Count Keyserling started out on his journey round the world in the year 1911, and the period from 1912 to 1918 has been devoted to the writing of it. The book was written in 1914; the proofs of volume 1 had already been passed for press and were in the possession of his publisher when the war broke out, leaving the author in possession of the proofs of volume 2 without any means of returning them to his publisher. Count Keyserling's estates being on Russian soil, he had no opportunity of communicating with Germany. During the war years, however, he devoted a great deal of time to going over his manuscripts, and the latter portion of volume 2 was entirely re-written. His object in writing this book was to find a means of self-expression. In 1918 a second crisis occurred in his worldly affairs, for as a result of the Russian revolution he was deprived of his estates and his fortune. He had to begin anew, to live entirely by his work as a refugee on German soil. In 1919 he married a granddaughter of Bismarck. The extraordinary success of the Travel Diary of a Philosopher in Germany was quickly seized upon by his publisher, Otto Reichl, at whose suggestion and at the invitation of the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen, he opened the School of Wisdom in Darmstatdt in 1920. He is now the head of a large movement of spiritual renewal, and he spends most of his time as a lecturer and public speaker. - Biographical note.