The youthful interests of Friedrich Nietzsche permeate his later work, for which the critical-creative writer is most widely known. We will first consider his early experiences, memories, illustrations, piano compositions, poetry, and prose, including his first major published writing, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, and university lectures on the pre-Socratics. The goal is to render a new and different reading that challenges contemporary perceptions, images, and conceptions of one of the most influential and controversial German writers of world literature.