My Life — Volume 1

About this volume

Richard Wagner recounts the early decades of his life as a series of artistic ambitions, personal entanglements, practical disappointments, and political disturbances. Childhood experiences of theater and music lead toward professional work, while money, travel, and the difficulty of finding a receptive audience repeatedly interrupt his plans. The first volume carries the account into his Dresden years, placing the developing composer within institutions and circumstances that he often describes as obstacles to the work he wants to create.

The interest of the book lies partly in that insistent personal perspective. Wagner is not a detached historian of his own career: he explains, justifies, remembers, and arranges events in ways that reveal how he wishes his development to be understood. Readers encounter the daily uncertainty behind an artistic reputation, alongside an intensely shaped account of its meaning. This volume can therefore be approached both as a record of experiences and as an act of self-portraiture, offering valuable detail while inviting questions about the distance between memory, conviction, and a fully independent account of the past.

Things You May Not Know About My Life — Volume 1

• The first half of an autobiography. This English edition identifies itself as volume one of a two-volume work, rather than a complete life in one book.
• Dictation shaped the text. Wagner explains in the preface that the account was written down from his dictation by the woman he calls his friend and wife.
• Initially intended for private readers. The preface describes plans for family and trusted friends, with a small printing intended to protect the account from accidental loss.
• A defined chronological span. The contents divide this volume into 1813–1842 and 1842–1850, with Dresden explicitly named as the setting of the second part.
• An authorized English translation. The title page identifies the book as a translation from German, so its wording is mediated through an English version of Wagner’s account.