John Henry Mackay was born on 6 February 1864 in Greenock, Scotland. His Scottish father died when Mackay was only nineteen months old and his German mother returned with him to Germany, where he grew up with German as his mother tongue. He later learned Englishand translated a volume of American and English poems into Germanbut did not write it well. After one year as an apprentice in a publishing house, he was a student at three universities, but only as an auditor. With a generous allowance from his mother, he traveled much and began his long career as a writer. Fame came in 1891 with his propagandistic The Anarchists, but Mackay wrote in a variety of literary forms and some of his lyric poetry was set to music by Richard Strauss. Mackay died in Berlin on 16 May 1933.