author
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749–1832
A giant of German literature, this poet, novelist, and playwright helped shape European culture through works that still feel vivid today. Best known for Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther, he also brought a scientist’s curiosity and a statesman’s experience to his writing.
2 Audiobooks
Die Leiden des jungen Werther
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Runoja
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
About the author
Born in Frankfurt am Main in 1749, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe became the most influential writer in the German language and one of the defining literary figures of Europe. He studied law, but literature drew him in early, and his 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther made him famous across the continent while he was still a young man.
Goethe spent much of his career in Weimar, where he served in government as well as writing poetry, plays, novels, and criticism. His interests reached far beyond literature: he also worked on science, including studies of plants, color, and anatomy, which helps explain the unusual range and curiosity found in his books.
His masterpiece is often considered Faust, a work he developed over many years and completed late in life. He died in 1832, but his influence has never really faded; readers still return to him for the emotional force of Werther, the ambition of Faust, and the sense that one restless mind was trying to understand the whole world.