Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German polymath widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language, whose wide-ranging influence as a poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, and critic persists on the Western world's literary, political, and philosophical thought. In 1774, he published his first novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, a semi-autobiographical epistolary work - emphasis on pistol - that presents the confessions of the alienated and romantic Werther, who has fallen madly in love with Charlotte, who is to be married to Albert: a certainty that propels young Werther to an irrevocable conclusion. Considered the first great tragic masterpiece of European literature, Werther's youthful angst was catapulted to immediate success and lives on as relevant and heartbreaking as when it was first written.