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Die Leiden des jungen Werther (In English: The Sorrows of Young Werther) is a loosely autobiographical novel 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.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther
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