Introduction

The young Werther comes to a quiet little town, meets Lotte, the daughter of a magistrate, at a ball and falls deeply in love with her; but Lotte is already engaged to the steady Albert. In his anguish Werther leaves the town to take a post at an embassy, but cannot bear the class prejudice of high society, resigns in anger and returns to Lotte. She is now married, and his love grows ever more hopeless. At last he borrows Albert's pistols and shoots himself late one night. Drawn from an unhappy love affair of Goethe's own and from a friend's suicide, this novel in letters pours out with burning feeling the conflict between a sensitive soul and society. It swept Europe on publication; young men copied Werther's blue coat and yellow waistcoat, and some even imitated his suicide. Napoleon said he had read it seven times.