Elias Canetti recounts his childhood in Bulgaria, England, Austria, and Switzerland. The Spanish origins of his family, the multilingual environment in the diverse small Bulgarian town of Ruse, the patriarchal life in his Jewish household, his first impressions of school in the merchant milieu of Manchester during the peak of the British Empire, the outbreak of World War I experienced in imperial Vienna, and the war and post-war period in democratic Zurich all provide a rich backdrop for the child's observations.