The young naturalist W. N. P. Barbellion described this remarkably candid record of living with multiple sclerosis as a study in the nude. It begins as an ambitious teenagers notes on the natural world, and then, following his diagnosis at the age of twenty-six, transforms into a deeply moving account of battling the disease. His prose is full of humour and fierce intelligence, and combines a passion for life with clear-sighted reflections on the nature of death. n n Barbellion selected and edited this manuscript himself in 1917, adding a fictional editors note announcing his own demise. This Penguin Classics edition includes The Last Diary, which covers the period between submission of the manuscript and Barbellions actual death in 1919. n