Egon Friedell was a philosophical writer and literary philosopher, as his lesser-known essays demonstrate. Bright-witted, enthusiastic, polemical, and always stimulating, these essays portray Egon Friedell as an enlightener, polemicist, diagnostician of the times, and timeless lateral thinker. He could write profoundly and effortlessly about diverse aspects of politics, history, philosophy, religion, theatre, and literature, establishing himself as one of the most brilliant essayists to have ever written in German.