Page:The ego and his own (IA egohisown00stiriala).pdf/11



For more than twenty years I have entertained the design of publishing an English translation of "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum." When I formed this design, the number of English-speaking persons who had ever heard of the book was very limited. The memory of Max Stirner had been virtually extinct for an entire generation. But in the last two decades there has been a remarkable revival of interest both in the book and in its author. It began in this country with a discussion in the pages of the Anarchist periodical, "Liberty," in which Stirner's thought was clearly expounded and vigorously championed by Dr. James L. Walker, who adopted for this discussion the pseudonym "Tak Tak." At the time Dr. Walker was the chief editorial writer for the Galveston "News." Some years later he became a practising physician in Mexico, where he died in 1904. A series of essays which he began in an Anarchist periodical, "Egoism," and which he lived to complete, was published after his death in a small volume, "The Philosophy of Egoism." It is a very able and convincing exposition of Stirner's teachings, and almost the only one that exists in the English language. But the chief instrument in the revival of Stirnerism was and is the German poet, John Henry Mackay. Very early in his career he met Stirner's name in Lange's "History of Materialism," and was moved thereby to read his book. The work made such an impression on him that he resolved to devote a portion of his life to the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the lost and forgotten genius. Through years of toil and correspondence and travel, and triumphing over tremendous ob-