Centaur Classics & Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time – #83] 

‘Nature has endowed [Goethe] more generously than anyone since Shakespeare.’ —Friedrich Schiller

‘[In] ‘Werther’, all the richness of [Goethe’s] gift was apparent… The extreme, nerve-shattering sensitivity of the little book… evoked a storm of applause which went beyond all bounds and fairly intoxicated the world.’ —Thomas Mann

‘One of the great works of European literature.’ —Napoleon Bonaparte



Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive and romantic young man, meets and falls in love with sweet-natured Lotte. Although he realizes that Lotte is to marry Albert, he is unable to subdue his passion for her, and his infatuation torments him to the point of absolute despair. The first great ‘confessional’ novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ draws both on Goethe’s own unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and on the death of his friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem. Goethe’s sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist at odds with soceity and ill-equipped to cope with life is now considered the first great tragic novel of European literature.