"Translated into English for the first time, these diaries provide a glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a great philosopher."

Anil Gomes - The Guardian

"Perloff has done a great service in bringing this volume to fruition. Her inclusion of remarks from the recto pages is judicious and will engage the non-specialist reader… Her translation here has real presence: emotional ubiety."

Ian Ground - The Times Literary Supplement

"These notebooks do reveal that in a sense Wittgenstein’s philosophy was a response to his circumstances: but only by providing him with the vital means to escape from them into his own mind – an extraordinary achievement."

Thomas Nagel - New Statesman

"Merely by reminding us that, for all his saintliness, Wittgenstein was human, all too human, these beautiful Notebooks bring him that bit closer to us."

Christopher Bray - The Tablet