On Thursday 26 September the novelist, biographer and columnist A.N. Wilson will be discussing his new book The Life of Goethe with Emeritus Professor Paul Hamilton at an event in the British Library’s Pigott Theatre. Full event and booking details can be found here. Meanwhile, to get you in a Goethe mood, we take a look at the book that first brought him international fame.

September 1774 saw the appearance of the 25-year-old Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s first novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther). Goethe had already become famous in Germany with his play Götz von Berlichingen, published the previous year, but the novel was to make his name throughout Europe.

Title-page of the first edition of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Leipzig, 1774) C.58.bb.12

The novel is mainly narrated in letters from the eponymous Werther to his friend Wilhelm. It tells the story of Werther’s doomed love for Lotte, a woman who seems to reciprocate his feelings but is betrothed to another man, Albert, as was her mother’s dying wish. When he realises that he can neither suppress his love for Lotte nor prevent her marriage, Werther leaves town to take up a post at court, but returns after a few unhappy months. Lotte and Albert are now married but Werther continues to visit Lotte, becoming ever more tormented by his feelings for her. After an emotional encounter where Werther embraces and kisses Lotte, she sends him away. Having already decided that only his, Lotte’s or Albert’s death can resolve the situation between them, Werther decides to kill himself. An afterword by the supposed editor of the letters tells of Werther’s suicide and its aftermath.

Werther at his writing-desk, engraving by J. Buckland Wright from a Halcyon Press edition of  Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Maastricht, 1931) C.115.s.26.

The novel was a huge success. It combined the time-honoured genre of the tragic love story with the contemporary cult of ‘sensibility’, featuring a protagonist who is guided entirely by his emotions. There were also titillating hints that the story was based on true events: Goethe had indeed drawn on his own brief infatuation with Charlotte Buff, who was engaged to his friend Johann Christian Kestner, and on the suicide of a colleague, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who was hopelessly in love with a married woman. A pamphlet published in 1775 identified the ‘real’ locations and characters, albeit only by initials in the case of the characters. Nonetheless, the book’s fame brought some unwanted attention to these ‘originals’. Jerusalem’s grave even became a place of pilgrimage for Werther fans.

Pages from H. von Breidenbach, Berichtigung der Geschichte des jungen Werthers (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1775; 12547.a.20.)  identifiyng the setting of the novel as a village near Wetzlar and the surname of Lotte’s father as beginning with B rather than S. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg)

A French translation of Werther appeared in 1775 and translations into other European languages, including English (initially via the French version) in 1779, soon followed. As well as German, French and English, the British Library holds editions in Afrikaans, Danish, Esperanto, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. 

Title-pages of early French, English and Italian translations of Die Leiden des jungen Werther 

The novel also spawned a wave of imitations, critiques, parodies, continuations and dramatizations, and was represented in other media. Illustrations of scenes from the story decorated crockery and playing cards, and a handbill from 1785 in the British Library’s collections (1850.c.10.(151.)) announces that “At Mrs. Salmon’s Royal Historical Wax-work ... Is to be seen the ... Group of the Death of Werter, attended by Charlotte and her Family.” Fashionable young men adopted Werther’s outfit of a blue tailcoat with a yellow waistcoat and breeches, although stories of a wave of copycat suicides while so dressed are almost certainly exaggerated. Werther’s name could even be used to sell unrelated works: a German translation of Isaac D’Israeli’s Mejnoun and Leila, a retelling of an Arabic story, was entitled Der arabische Werther (‘The Arabian Werther’).

Title-page of Confidential Letters of Albert; from his first attachment to Charlotte to her death (London, 1790) RB.23.a.18744. The work has been variously attributed to John Armstrong and Mary Eden

A popular form of ‘Wertheriad’ presented letters from other characters, such as William James’s The Letters of Charlotte during her Connexion with Werter (early English editions generally dropped the h of Werther) or The Confidential Letters of Albert. August Cornelius Stockmann’s Die Leiden der jungen Wertherinn (‘The Sorrows of the young female Werther’), although its title suggests a version with the gender roles reversed, similarly retells the story from Lotte’s perspective although not in epistolary form. However, the French novelist Pierre Perrin’s Werthérie (translated into English as The Female Werter) was the story of a woman tragically obsessed with a married man.

Title-page and frontispiece of Pierre Perrin, Werthérie (Paris, 1791) 1074.h.32. (Image from a copy in the Bayerische Staatsibliothek)

Another common theme in both poetry and art was Lotte mourning at Werther’s grave. The original story leaves her own fate uncertain, saying that her grief and shock at Werther’s death made her family fear for her life, and some continuations do indeed have her dying also, but the idea of her rallying at least enough to visit the grave was clearly irresistible.

Title page of Carl Ernst von Reizenstein, Lotte bey Werthers Grab (‘Wahlheim’, 1775) 11521.aa.14. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg)

Illustrators were also fond of depicting the famous scene where Werther first sees Lotte as she butters and cuts slices of bread for her younger siblings. This was also popular with the parodists, and bookends William Thackeray’s famous satirical verses about the story. 

Werther meets Lotte as she cuts slices of buttered bread for her younger siblings. Engraving by Daniel Chodowiecki. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Despite (or perhaps because of) its popularity, many commentators criticised the work, and in particular Werther’s extreme emotions and his suicide. A popular riposte to Goethe’s work was Friedrich Nicolai’s Freuden des jungen Werthers (‘Joys of Young Werther’). Here Albert renounces Lotte, who marries Werther. Things do not at first go smoothly, and the remarkably tolerant Albert has to act as marriage counsellor, but Werther gradually becomes practical and responsible. The story ends with him and his family happily cultivating their garden in good Voltairean fashion.

Title page of Friedrich Nicolai, Freuden des jungen Werthers: Leiden und Freuden Werthers des Mannes (Berlin, 1775) 12547.aaa.8. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)

The economist Johann August Schlettwein wrote two pamphlets criticising Goethe’s work, one of which is couched as a letter from Werther, now suffering the torments of damnation, appealing to others not to follow his example. Ernst August Anton von Göchhausen, in his Das Werther-Fieber (‘The Werther Fever’) shows a family divided over the story – daughter Sibylle is dangerously obsessed, but the rest of the family consider Werther a fool (which I must admit was my own assessment reading the novel as an undergraduate!).

Title-page of Ernst August Anton von Göchhausen, Das Werther-Fieber, eine unvollendetes Familienstück (Nieder-Teutschland [i.e Leipzig], 1776) 12547.b.5. (Image from a copy in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

Goethe would later distance himself from Werther as he left behind the wild enthusiasm of his youthful ‘Sturm und Drang’ works and embraced a more measured classicism. A revised version published in 1787 gave the editor more of a voice and made Albert more sympathetic, somewhat counterbalancing Werther’s emotionalism. But even after it had passed the peak of its popularity, Werther continued to be much read, and it inspired literary responses into the 20th century. Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar (1939) is a fictional retelling of the real-life encounter between Charlotte Kestner (née Buff) and Goethe 42 years after the publication of Werther, while Ulrich Plenzdorf’s Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (The New Sorrows of Young W.) maps Goethe’s novel onto the story of a disaffected young man in 1960s East Germany. And in the 21st century the story has been reinvented as a graphic novel in a contemporary setting, Werther Reloaded.

Cover of Franziska Walther, Werther reloaded: nach dem Roman ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werther’ von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Mannheim, 2016) YF.2016.b.2045  

250 years after its first appearance, Werther may no longer have the powerful appeal that it had at the time,  but the novel still stands as a literary classic and a offers glimpse into a particular mindset that briefly held sway over romantically inclined readers in the late 18th century.

References/Further reading 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Les souffrances du jeune Werther, translated by Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff (Erlangen, 1886) 244.e.10.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Werter: a German Story, translated by Richard Graves (London, 1779) 12555.a.34.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Werther, opera di sentimento, translated by Gaetano Grassi (Poschiavo, 1782) 012553.e.35.

Isaac Disraeli, Der Arabische Werther, oder Mejnun und Leila, eine romantische Erzählung für Liebende (Leipzig, 1804) 12618.a.45. 

William James, The letters of Charlotte, during her connexion with Werter (Dublin, 1786) 1489.g.7.

August Cornelius Stockmann, Die Leiden der jungen Wertherinn (Eisenach, 1775) 12547.b.6.

“Diesem viehischen Trieb ergeben”: J. A. Schlettweins Kritik an Goethes Werther: Briefe an eine Freundinn über die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1775), Des jungen Werthers Zuruf aus der Ewigkeit an die noch lebende Menschen auf der Erde (1775), herausgegeben von Volker Hoenerbach. (Hamburg 2009) YF.2012.a.7890

Johann August Schlettwein, Werther in die Hölle (Frankfurt am Main, 1775) 8630.b.2.(5.) (A reissue of his Briefe an eine Freundinn über die Leiden des jungen Werthers with new introductory material)

Thomas Mann, Lotte in Weimar (Stockholm, 1939) YA.1989.a.3081 

Ulrich Plenzdorf, Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (Frankfurt am Main, 1973)  X.908/27279.

Robyn L. Schiffman, ‘A Concert of Werthers’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 43, no. 2 (2010), pp. 207-222  P.901/754

Karol Sauerland, ‘Wertherfieber’, European History Online Website

 

A selection of other early responses, adaptations and imitations from the BL collections:

Heinrich Leopold Wagner, Prometheus Deukalion und seine Recensenten (Hamburg, 1775) 11746.c.35. (A satire on reviewers of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers)

Heinrich Gottfried von Bretschneider, Eine entsetzliche Mordgeschichte von dem jungen Werther ([s.l.], 1776) 12547.aaa.9. (A free adaptation of the original)

Man denkt verschieden bey Werthers Leiden. Ein Schauspiel in drey Aufzügen (s.l., 1779) 11745.c.1.

Edward Taylor, Werter to Charlotte: a Poem (Lonndon, 1784) 11632.d.49.(1.)

Jean-Marie-Jérôme Fleuriot, Le Nouveau Werther, imité de l’Allemand (Neuchâtel, 1786) 12547.c.8.

Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins, The Victim of Fancy (London, 2009) YC.2010.a.15559 (Originally published 1786; French translation, La Victime de l’imagination, ou l’enthousiaste de Werther (Paris, 1795?) Ch.790/127.)

Eglantine Wallace, A Letter to a Friend, with a poem called the Ghost of Werter (London, 1787) 11632.h.16. 

George Wright, The unfortunate lovers, abridged from the Sorrows of Werter ... (London, 1788) RB.23.a.8495

Sarah Farrell, Charlotte, or, A sequel to the sorrows of Werther ... and other poems (Bath, 1792) 11642.h.17.

Amelia Pickering, The Sorrows of Werter: a Poem (London, 1788) 1346.m.11.

Joseph Antoine de Gourbillon, Stellino, ou le Nouveau Werther (Paris, 1791)

Werter and Charlotte. A German story containing many wonderful and pathetic incidents (London, 1800?) 12611.ee.32.(4.) (A loose adaptation of the original)

Carl Phillip Bonafont, Der neue Werther, oder Gefühl und Liebe (Nuremberg, 1804) 12547.cc.11.

James Bell, Letters from Wetzlar, written in 1817, developing the authentic particulars on which the “Sorrows of Werter” are founded (London, 1821) 11851.c.7. 

Georges Duval, Le Retour de Werther, ou les derniers épanchemens de la sensibilité, comédie en un acte, mêlée de vaudevilles (Paris, 1821) 11738.e.16.(10.) 

 

An anonymous and undated poem beginning ‘Cold in this tomb the dust of Werter lies’ C.116.g.22.(2.)

The digitisation and preservation of over 10,000 old photographs, negatives and glass plates in the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme was a significant project completed in 2006.

The photographic collections of the Ethnographic Institute and Museum, housed in the old royal palace in Sofia, are a treasure trove, comprising 10,000 black-and-white and colour photonegatives, alongside 5,000 photographs, and an additional 5,000 plates. These visual records offer a vivid glimpse into various facets of Bulgarian culture and heritage.

A farmhouse in the village Glozhene, Teteven district, Bulgaria [1956]. Creator: N. Nikolov EAP103/1/1/1.

Capturing a wide array of subjects, these photographs provide invaluable insights into traditional Bulgarian costume, architectural marvels, ceremonial rituals, women's traditional dresses, as well as the everyday customs and lifestyle of the Bulgarian village. They serve as meticulous documentation, facilitating a comprehensive and objective reconstruction of lost cultural phenomena, agricultural tools, folk-style artefacts, and national attire.

Market in Teteven district (Central Bulgaria). Date: 1956. Creator: N. Nikolov EAP103/1/1/4.

By preserving and showcasing these images, the project intended to safeguard a rich tapestry of cultural heritage for future generations. This extensive visual documentation not only offers a glimpse into the past but also serves as a vital resource for understanding the socio-economic dynamics and cultural evolution of Bulgarians during the pre-industrial era.

Photograph from a wedding in Bulgaria. Bulgarian women in traditional costumes. Date: 1962. Creator: G. Vaisilov. EAP103/1/1/76.

Furthermore, these collections represent a unique repository of information, presenting a perspective on Bulgarian life that, as the project concludes, is unparalleled by any other archive in Bulgaria. Through this project, the Ethnographic Institute and Museum endeavours to ensure that this invaluable and diverse cultural heritage remains accessible and appreciated for years to come.

Photographs of boys and girls in traditional costumes. Date: 1962. Creator: G. Vaisilov. EAP103/1/1/80

Digital copies of photographs dating back to the mid-20th century form an integral part of the Ethnographic Institute and Museum archive, compiled as a result of extensive ethnographic, historical, and artistic research activities. These photographs give a multifaceted glimpse into various aspects of Bulgarian culture and society during that period. 

Photograph of two researchers standing at the entrance of a building in Tikhomir village, Kirkovo district. The sign above the entrance reads: ‘Narodno chitalishte’ (Community’s reading centre). Communist slogans are written on the wall next to the entrance of the building. Date: 1962. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/85.

Among the diverse subjects captured in these images are rural architectural structures providing insights into the building environment of Bulgaria during the mid-20th century. Bulgarian material culture is presented in visual records showcasing a wide array of pottery, tools, kitchen utensils, and other artefacts, offering a glimpse into the craftsmanship of the region.

A girl carrying fresh water in water buckets. Popsko village, Ivailovgrad district. Date: 1962. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/88.

The photographs capture scenic vistas and natural landscapes, showing the beauty and diversity of Bulgaria's geographical terrain. These photographs are records of religious structures, icons, and artefacts, reflecting the spiritual and cultural significance of religion in Bulgarian society.

Ploughing in Pastrotsi village, Ivailovgrad district. Date: 1962. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/89.

The images portray traditional Bulgarian cuisine, food markets, and culinary practices, providing a window into gastronomic traditions and dietary habits. There are photographs capturing festive celebrations, traditional rituals, and cultural ceremonies, illustrating the rich tapestry of Bulgarian customs and traditions. The photographs are visual documentation of traditional Bulgarian attire and costumes, showcasing the diversity and intricacies of regional dress. There are also reproductions or photographs of paintings, illustrations, or artistic representations relevant to Bulgarian culture and history.

A woman in a mill in Teteven region (Central Bulgaria). Date: c 1956. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/8.

These digital copies serve as invaluable resources for researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike, offering a comprehensive visual archive of Bulgarian life and culture during the mid-20th century. Through digitization, the project aimed to preserve these cultural artefacts for posterity and ensure their accessibility to future generations.

Women in a village are getting ready for the wedding in Teteven region (Central Bulgaria). Date: c 1956. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/14.

Each photograph in this collection serves as a window into Bulgaria's past, contributing valuable insights into its cultural, social, and artistic heritage. We in the Library are excited to share these digital copies with researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike, ensuring that this rich cultural legacy is preserved and accessible for future generations to explore and appreciate.

A saddler at work in Divlia village, Radomir district (Western Bulgaria). Date: c 1957. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/23

A tinsmith, Kilifarevo village, Veliko Turnovo district (Central Bulgaria). Date: c 1957. Creator: Marinov. EAP103/1/1/44/18.

The project digitised a fascinating collection of mid-20th-century photographs, methodically curated from ethnographic, historical, and artistic research endeavours. These photographs provide a rich tapestry of Bulgarian life and culture during this era, capturing a diverse range of subjects.

Saia (a traditional female costume) Date: 1961. Creator: N. Nikolov. EAP103/1/1/61/4.

Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections

The Gdańsk Agreement of 1980, established between the workers of the Lenin shipyard and the Polish People’s Republic’s undemocratically elected government, saw the beginning of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union’s fight against the Communist Regime. In the following seven years, around 4830 books and 2027 journals, many of which are in the British Library’s Solidarity Collection, were published underground in a so-called ‘second circulation’. As far as the records go, only 175 of these works were authored by a mere 97 female writers.

Superficial research into female involvement in Polish anti-government publishing could end here. Women in print? Official numbers leave no doubt: they were few and far between. To broaden the scope of this quest to uncover unheard female voices in the Solidarity Collection, avenues other than scholarly browsing of the Library’s basements had to be incorporated. And so, on a brisk December morning, one of them led all the way out of the bustle of central London into the quiet of Hampshire countryside.

“At that time my involvement in the anti-communist opposition was very important for me, probably more important than my medical studies”, recalls Anna Młynik-Shawcross, a retired psychiatrist based in Britain since 1985 – the year when she arrived here as a political refugee. Anna reflects on the times after the strikes in the shipyard ended and she graduated from the medical school. “However, I decided to follow medicine instead of getting involved as the unions’ activist”, she confirms. But how does this story begin? The interview with her is meant to deepen the present understanding of diverse roles women played in the 1970s-1980s Polish underground publishing.

Anna Młynik-Shawcross in her home (photo by Olga Topol).

Anna, born in 1955 in Gdańsk, first became involved with the democratic anti-communist movement at the beginning of her Medical School years, in the winter of 1976. When the communist government pushed for changes in the Polish constitution of the time, Anna, alongside a small group of Gdańsk students, joined the movement which started with signing the protest letters against those changes. In the summer of the same year the famous strikes began in Radom and Lublin and spread all over the country, while lots of people lost their employment. At that time the famous ‘Committee for Social Self-Defence’ (KOR) was set up. “I was able to get the list of names of the workers who were sacked [so that they could be helped by KOR]”, recalls Anna. In the years 1977-1978, she was part of the ‘Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights’ (ROPCiO). She was a founder member of the Student Solidarity Committee set up in Gdańsk in November 1977 and was involved in organising student discussion groups and helping those persecuted by the Communist regime.

Around the same time, one of the first printing machines intended for the independent underground printing of works by authors censored by the regime was shipped from abroad with the help of Jaraczewski family, Józef Piłsudski’s descendants. Anna remembers the times she spent printing leaflets and the establishment of an underground periodical Bratniak published by the ‘Movement of Young Poland’, a Free Trade Union periodical called Robotnik Wybrzeża, as well as the first independent publishing house involved in distributing books across the country, Nowa.

An example of an underground publication, Kazimierz Brandys, Miesiące, (Warszawa 1980) Sol. 241w.

“I was in contact with them and was involved into distribution of books across Poland. They had to be well protected, so we had to have a network of people. We would distribute them through friends, all just through networks”, recalls Anna. Distribution of printed material posed challenges, with private flats acting as places of conspiracy. In the following years, Anna contributed to nothing less than the establishment of a new publishing house, Klin. Together with a small group of friends they set the ambitious goal of about 3,500 published books to be published, and worked tirelessly towards it. Still today she recalls, not without excitement, getting a ‘Western’ paper trimmer, as well as gaining the support of a bookbinder.

“It started with my money that I earned working as a student abroad”, Anna recalls, “We needed a lot of paper, but you couldn’t simply go into a shop and buy tons of paper. So we were going to different shops and buying small amounts.” The printing was primitive, primarily in the offset technique. “We got the paint and were spending hours and hours copying books”, adds Anna, a 2009 recipient of an Order of Polonia Restituta. Now, let us look again at the initial number mentioned above: 97 female writers? What about the women behind the scenes?

Anna expands on female involvement in the opposition movement, including the free press. Although often reluctant about such contribution because of concern for the welfare of their children, especially at that challenging time, many women were involved. She and Magda Modzelewska were involved in Gdańsk’s Student Solidarity Commitee. Joanna Duda-Gwiazda and Alinka Pieńkowska belonged to the Wolne Związki Zawodowe trade unions, which published journal Robotnik Wybrzeża. Finally, Bożena Rybicka, Małgorzata Rybicka, and Magda Modzelewska supported the journal Bratniak: “Małgorzata Rybicka was writing articles in Bratniak, while Magda Modzelewska was involved into editing and publishing”, recalls Anna.

Back cover of Marguerite Duras Kochanek (Siedlce, 1987) Sol.235j. featuring a dedication to female colleagues working in the independent publishing movement.

Any involvement in the opposition’s fight for democracy and freedom of speech involved high risk and intimidation. Secret police employed numerous tactics, including arrests, house searches, sending anonymous letters with false information and all kind of threats. “One day my parents received an anonymous letter informing them that I was under the influence of drug addicts and that [my parents] should put pressure on me to disengage from the opposition. My parents were threatened that they would lose their employment. Also, for me, getting a job was hard, especially locally”, she recollects.

Friendships developed during her involvement with underground publishing, which were based on enormous levels of trust to support the clandestine activities. She reflects upon the fact that most of the people involved in the opposition groups belonged to the intelligentsia: “After Wałęsa joined the movement it was a bit easier to reach the working-class people. But they were being persecuted”.

The fascinating conversation goes on for hours. Initial conclusions drawn from limited research done so far into women in Poland’s ‘second circulation’ go down the drain.  And with that emerges a richer picture: that of publishing houses which, although dominated by men, could not have accomplished their mission fully without female efforts around printing and distribution of illegal pro-democratic materials. And so, a brisk December morning spent in a quiet Hampshire town can alone paint a fascinating picture of women working alongside men to help true information reach larger numbers of Poles during the Cold War. Imagine what could more such encounters, and digging deeper into the potential of oral history, bring to surface. 

Agata Piotrowska, Doctoral Fellow 2024, Slavonic and East European collections

Further reading:

Wojciech Chojnacki, Marek Jastrzębski, Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce. Tom Drugi, 01 I 1986 – 31 XII 1987, (Warszawa: 1993). YA.1994.a.5556

Ann M. Frenkel, Paweł Sowiński, Gwido Zlatkes, Duplicator underground: the independent publishing industry in Communist Poland 1976-89, (Bloomington, Indiana: 2016). YD.2017.a.460

Józefa Kamińska (real names: Władysław Chojnacki, Wojciech Chojnacki), Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce, 13 XII 1981 – VI 1986, (Paris: 1988). 2725.e.184

Shana Penn, Solidarity’s secret: the women who defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor, Michigan: 2005). YC.2007.a.10368