Die Leiden des jungen Werther (In English: The Sorrows of Young Werther) is a loosely autobiographicalnovel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. It was his first major success, turning Goethe from an unknown into a celebrated author practically overnight. Young men throughout Europe began to dress in the clothing described for Werther in the novel. It also led to some of the first known examples of copycat suicide.
The Sorrows of Young Werther is mentioned in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Frankenstein's monster finds the book along with three others (Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Volney's The Ruins: Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires, and Milton's Paradise Lost) in a sack. He sees Werther's case as similar to his own. He, like Werther, was rejected by those he loved. This realization depressed the monster and, eventually, persuaded him to commit suicide.
An episode of History Bites features this book, with Bob Bainborough portraying Goethe.
The subject most in favour was the matière de Bretagne, the legends clustering around King Arthur and the Round Table, with which that of the Holy Grail had been combined.
Its popularity was exceeded by "DieLeidendesjungenWerthers" (1774), a novel in letter form, reflecting the morbid sentimentalism of the age; the hero kills himself under the spell of a hopeless passion for the affianced of his friend.
"Die Wahlverwandtschaften" (1809), a psychological novel, depicts the tragic conflict between passion and duty and upholds the sanctity of the marriage tie.
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