Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science which he later described as 'perhaps my most personal book' when he was at the height of his intellectual powers & the reader will find in it an extensive & sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes & views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought & which have been most influential on later thinkers These include the death of God the problem of nihilism the role of truth falsity & the will-to-truth in human life the doctrine of the eternal recurrence & the question of the proper attitude to adopt toward human suffering & toward human achievement This volume presents the work in a new translation by Josefine Nauckhoff with an introduction by Bernard Williams that elucidates the work's main themes & discusses their continuing philosophical importance