Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Elective Affinities, also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference to others. The novel …

Goethe's most complex and profound work, Faust was the effort of the great poet's entire lifetime. Written over 60 years, it can be read as a document of Goethe's moral and artistic development. Faust is made available to the English reader in a completely new translation that communicates both its poetic variety and …

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774; revised 1787) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a short, mostly epistolary work of elevated emotion of the German Sturm und Drung period that later evolves into Romanticism. Honorable and sensitive young Werther literally perishes from a love that can never be, a love for a married …