Richard Wagner's life was as tempestuous as his music and in his own retelling it constitutes a gripping narrative. His autobiography, My Life, matters if one wants to understand the composer's life or the way in which he himself saw that life. And yet, it has a flawed publishing history: Bayreuth published the first commercial edition in 1911, but it was not until 1963 that the full text appeared in an annotated German edition. An anonymous English translation was published in 1911, the work of a translator unfamiliar with the subject. A second translation, published in 1987, is notable for its wayward style and many inaccuracies. Until this day, no edition published in any language has risen to the challenge of providing adequate annotation. This new scholarly edition and translation by Stewart Spencer is the first edition to do so.

Annotations provided here explain references and allusions that Wagner himself took for granted and correct lapses of memory that the text contains. The edition highlights various strategies of concealment as far as Wagner's love life and revolutionary activities were concerned. Crucially, as this edition illuminates, by the 1860s Wagner was anxious to portray himself as Beethoven's natural successor, and his life in defence of art as a bulwark against the decline of Western civilization. This new critical edition and translation of Richard Wagner's autobiography is a response to one of the most pressing needs in the entire Wagner bibliography. It will be widely welcomed by a substantial Wagner community of readers.