1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Roxana
  • Moll Flanders
  • Love In Excess
  • Robinson Crusoe
  • A Tale of a Tub
  • Oroonoko
  • The Princess of Cleves

Friday, January 13, 2012

41. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This novel, published in Germany in 1774, is very different in style from the English novels I've been reading, although it also tells the story through Werter's letters to a friend.

Werter falls in love with Lotte, who is engaged to Albert and subsequently marries him.  In the end Werter despairs and shoots himself, telling Charlotte they will be reunited in the next life.

(Thanks to Kindle, I can tell you that the last fifth of the book is Werter talking about and then committing suicide!)

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