Portraits of Kant: Reflections from 18th- and 19th-Century Europe

Portraits of Kant is a three-volume work on the life of Immanuel Kant, constructed from the observations of his family, friends, colleagues, and other contemporaries, drawing on more than 160 selected texts and 90 illustrations of Kant and his physical surroundings. Volume I introduces Königsberg – the city where Kant spent his entire life – and collects together observations and records of Kant’s family life and childhood, his studies at the Gymnasium and university, and his years spent as a Hofmeister in the Prussian countryside. Volume II presents Kant’s life in the university as a popular professor with observations by his students and others visiting his classroom. There are accounts of Kant’s home life and his famous dinner parties, his daily walks and travels within Prussia, and his many social engagements, along with his thoughts on women and marriage, the arts, religion and Judaism, and the French Revolution. Volume III focuses on Kant’s work as a scholar and author, along with his growing celebrity and the many visitors drawn to Königsberg to meet him, concluding with his final years of increasing debility and death. Nearly all of the source material is appearing for the first time in English, with extracts from letters, diaries, and journals of the day, as well as longer biographical sketches and memoirs. This is the only biographical resource of its kind, told through the words of those who knew and argued with him.