Johann Kaspar Schmidt, better known as Max Stirner (the nom de plume he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow, in German 'Stirn'), was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary grandfathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. Stirner's main work is "The Ego and Its Own", also known as "The Ego and His Own" ("Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" in German, which translates literally as "The Only One and his Property"). This work was first published in 1844 in Leipzig, and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.
