"Arthur Schopenhauer may be distinctively described as the greatest philosophic writer of his century. So evident is this that he has sometimes been regarded as having more importance in literature than in philosophy; but this is an error. As a metaphysician he is second to no one since Kant. Others of his age have surpassed him in system and in comprehensiveness; but no one has had a firmer grasp of the essential and fundamental problems of philosophy. On the theory of knowledge, the nature of reality, and the meaning of the beautiful and the good, he has solutions to offer that are all results of a characteristic and original way of thinking." - T.W

Schopenhauer by Thomas Whittaker is a concise and insightful introduction to the life of the 19th-century German thinker. It also offers a well-structured and accessible analysis of his major philosophical contributions. In this new edition, this work is followed by "Studies in Pessimism", a selection of essays from Schopenhauer's Parerga.