Den unge Werthers lidande

Frågan är om någon bok någonsin har haft en så förödande verkan på unga sinnen som Den unge Werthers lidanden. Goethe själv som skrev den nästan sömngångaraktigt under fyra veckor utan något utkast, aktade sig nogsamt för att läsa om den. Han våga[...]

'I have so much and my feeling for her devours everything, I have so much and without her everything is nothing.' The Sorrows of Young Werther propelled Goethe to instant fame when it first appeared in 1774. Goethe drew on his own unhappy experiences to tell the story of Werther, a young man torment[...]

A masterpiece of European imagination, The Sufferings of Young Werther is the classic Sturm und Drang tale of youthful angst and tragedy. The acclaimed translator Stanley Corngold brings new passion and precision to Goethe's novel of obsessive love and madness in this magnificent new translation. Go[...]

One of world literature's towering figures, Goethe dominated two centuries of European writing and thought. The Enlightenment's most wayward genius, and Romanticism's most remarkable, he led two great artistic movements without fully subscribing to either. While his stature in the English-speaking w[...]

In 1786, when he was already the acknowledged leader of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, Goethe set out on a journey to Italy to fulfil a personal and artistic quest and to find relief from his responsibilities and the agonies of unrequited love. As he travelled to Venice, Rome, Naples and Sic[...]

Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills ...Goethe was probably the last true 'Renaissance Man'. Although employed as a Privy Councillo[...]

Goethe's Faust reworks the late-medieval myth of Dr Faust, a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract or wager with the devil, Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seek to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last for ever. But[...]

'I can promise to be candid, not, however, to be impartial.' A selection of the most insightful maxims and reflections from one of Germany's greatest ever thinkers. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity o[...]

Editorial censorship has long obscured Goethe's Roman Elegies, which were inspired by Goethe's sexual liberation in Italy and his love for the woman he took as his unofficial wife on his return to Germany. They are here presented as Goethe boldly conceived them, together with the long-supressed narr[...]

The Metamorphosis of Plants, published in 1790, was Goethe's first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend "the truth about the how of the organism." Inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy, Goethe sought a unity of form in diverse structures. He ca[...]

Published in concert with the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth, this selection of great works from the German writer includes The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust, among others.[...]

This edition includes both part I and II of the drama. It represents a significant departure from its predecessor in terms of supporting apparatus and the "Interpretative Notes" have been expanded. "Contexts" includes five new selections by Goethe on the composition of the novel. "Criticism" include[...]