This candid intimate & compellingly written new biography offers a completely fresh account of Robert Schumanns life. It confronts the traditional perception of the doom-laden Romantic forced by depression into a life of helpless poignant sadness. John Worthens scrupulous attention to the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute witty articulate & immensely determined individual who with little support from his background in provincial Saxony painstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician overcame problem after problem in his professional life & married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with his father-in-law. Schumann was neither manic depressive nor schizophrenic though he struggled with financial problems & illness. He worked prodigiously hard to develop his range of musical styles & to earn his living only to be struck down at the age of forty-four by a vile & incurable disease. Worthens biography effectively demystifies a figure frequently regarded as a Romantic enigma. It frees Schumann from one hundred & fifty years of myth-making & unjustified psychological speculation. It reveals him for the first time as a brilliant passionate resolute musician & thoroughly creative human being & as the composer of arguably the best music of his generation.