This book was first published in English by Benjamin R. Tucker, the anarchist editor of Liberty in New York City. It is a thinly-disguised autobiographical journey of transformation from revolutionary self-martyrdom to radical self-ownership. Mackay's authentic Kulturgemalde begins in Victorian London, its five million people struggling with poverty, class conflict, police brutality, and seething with proletarian discontent over the impending execution of the Haymarket Anarchists in Chicago.

Onto the scene come Carrard Auban -- a French revolutionary firebrand turned anarcho-individualist -- and Otto Trupp, Auban's comrade-in-arms. With Trupp, Auban debates the merits of anarcho-communism, and takes the reader on radical walking tours of London.

John Henry Mackay (1864 – May 16, 1933) was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten (The Anarchists) (1891) and Der Freiheitsucher (The Searcher for Freedom) (1921). Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty. He was a noted homosexual. For essays by him, see Enemies of Society.

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