Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), better known as Max Stirner, was a German philosopher who is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, and individualist anarchism.
Stirner's main work, The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Unique And Its Property, or, literally, The Individual and His Property, was first published in 1845 in Leipzig and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.