author
Heinrich Döring
1789–1862
Best known as an early biographer of Goethe, this prolific 19th-century German writer moved easily between literature, theology, and the natural sciences. His books helped shape how later readers met many of the great figures of German letters.
3 Audiobooks
Friedrich v. Schiller's Biographie
by Heinrich Döring
Chr. M. Wieland's Biographie
by Heinrich Döring
J. W. v. Goethe's Biographie
by Heinrich Döring
About the author
Born in Danzig on May 8, 1789, Heinrich Döring was a German writer, translator, theologian, and mineralogist who later died in Jena on December 14, 1862. He is remembered above all as a biographer of major German classical authors.
After an interrupted business apprenticeship, he went on to study at the University of Jena and built a wide-ranging literary career. His work covered theology and scholarship as well as literary lives, and he became especially known for writing the first full biography of Goethe.
Döring's appeal for modern readers lies in that mix of curiosity and range: he did not belong to just one field, and his books reflect a time when literature, learning, and public culture were closely connected. For anyone interested in the world around Goethe and the German classics, he offers a lively doorway into that era.