In November–December 1908, at the age of 26, Anthony Mario Ludovici lectured at the University of London on the subject of Nietzsche's philosophy. From the man who later translated Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's infamous biography of her brother, it comes as no surprise to find statements such as the following: ‘The strong will and must discharge their strength, and in doing so, the havoc they may make of other beings in their environment is purely incidental.’ In 1967, displaying a remarkable lifelong attachment to ideas that had long since become unfashionable, Ludovici claimed in his last book that ‘everywhere in Europe the mob, high and low, has been indoctrinated with the Liberal heresy that heredity plays no part in human breeding, and that therefore special endowments cannot be transmitted from one generation to another’.

In this chapter I discuss the writings of Anthony Ludovici, a man who, despite his many publications (over fifty books and pamphlets, and numerous articles), has been almost totally forgotten. The interest of Ludovici's extreme ideology lies not in the fact that he was the only person to espouse the views he did – at least before 1939 – but in the fact that he continued to maintain his position until his death in 1971, entirely failing to modify his opinions. Furthermore, the peculiar mélange of ideas which went into making Ludovici's ideology cannot easily be labelled with any familiar term. I argue that we should not forget the ‘extremes of Englishness’ just because its ideas, here represented by Ludovici, did not ultimately inform policy.