"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither . . . over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair." -- Bertrand Russell

Champion of intellectual, social and sexual freedom, campaigner for peace and for civil and human rights, Bertrand Russell remains one of the greatest and most complex and controversial figures of the twentieth century. His childhood was bitterly lonely but rich in experience. His adulthood was spent grappling with both his own beliefs and the problems of the universe and mankind, and the pursuit of love and permanent happiness which resulted in five marriages. This new edition of Russell's Autobiography, available for the first time in one volume, shares a life of incredible variety, and is told with vigor, charm and total frankness.