Described by Ferdinand Josef Schneider in his 1911 biography as "die rätselhafteste und widerspruchsvollste Persönlichkeit in der deutschen Literatur" (the most puzzling and self-contradictory personality in German literature), Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel was both the quintessential man of the eighteenth century and a writer whose work speaks to readers today with astonishing, almost uncanny relevance. Paradox abounds in his life and work. Hippel was a rationalist who abandoned the principles of reason when he felt that they interfered with the search for truth, and a devout Christian who struggled his entire life with the fact of death. He once wrote that he considered liars detestable and a lie one of the most heinous crimes; yet he published his works in the strictest anonymity, and his almost pathological insistence on the preservation of that anonymity often forced him into outright denials when he was confronted by...