The Sorrows of Young Werther (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) - Softcover

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486424553 ISBN 13: 9780486424552

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2002

Synopsis

Composed almost entirely of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm, The Sorrows of Young Werther is a heartbreaking narrative about a doomed love. Werther, a young artist driven more by the heart than by reason, is already enraptured with the elusive Charlotte when she marries another man better suited to her class. To keep Charlotte near, Werther befriends her husband—a bid that becomes a torturous reminder of all he’s lost. Then, out of sincere pity, Charlotte can think of only one way to help free Werther from his self-destructive passion, but he has a different plan of escape.

In one of the first important novels of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature, the self-absorption of youth unites with the extremes of emotion to create a perfect storm, leaving readers shipwrecked on the shores of grief and awe.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Sorrows of Young Werther, this edition of The Sorrows of Young Werther (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

When this book was published in 1774, it inspired a mass cult of feelings (and reputedly a few suicides) and made its author one of the first literary celebrities. It is a story of a tormented young man whose fixation on an inaccessible woman culminates in tragedy may be read as a celebration of unfettered emotion or as a mercilessly accurate portrait of a man whose dedication to pure feeling turns him into a monster.

From the Inside Flap:

A major work of German romanticism in a translation that is acknowledged as the definitive English language version. The Vintage Classics edition also includes NOVELLA, Goethe's poetic vision of an idyllic pastoral society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0486424553
• ISBN 13: 9780486424552
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96