ntral character to an absent friend. There can be
little doubt that the epistolary form was suggested by a book with
which Goethe was familiar, and which had been received with enthusiasm
in Germany as in other continental countries--Richardson's _Clarissa
Harlowe_ (1747-8). Richardson's example, moreover, had been followed
in another work which had achieved as sensational as success as
_Clarissa_--Rousseau's _Nouvelle Heloise_. In form and substance
_Werther_ was as much inspired by Richardson and Rousseau as _Goetz_
had been by Shakespeare, yet in _Werther_, as in _Goetz_, the world
recognised an original creation which bore a new message to every
heart capable of receiving it.

The portentous work was published in the autumn of 1774, but the form
in which we now have it belongs to a later date. In the first complete
edition of Goethe's Works (1787), _Werther_ appeared with certain
modifications, which did not, however, as in the case of _Goetz_,
organically affect its original form.[153] Expressions which to
Goethe's maturer taste appeared objectionable were altered--not
always, German critics are disposed to think, in the direction of
improvement; the story of the unfortunate peasant in whose fate
Werther saw an image of his own, was introduced; and, in deference to
the feelings of Kestner and Lotte, the characters of the two persons
in the book with whom readers identified them were presented in a
somewhat more favourable light.[154]

[Footnote 153: In making these modifications Goethe was advised by
Herder and Wieland.]

[Footnote 154: Though to the satisfaction of neither Kestner nor
Lotte.]

With what degree of similitude Goethe has portrayed himself in the
character of Werther must necessarily be matter of opinion, but that
his work was essentially drawn from his own experience the merest
outline of it conclusively shows. Equally in the case of the two parts
of which the book is composed we have the presentment of successive
phases of emotion through which we know that he had himself passed
when he sat down to write it. The first part, the substance of which
was probably drafted in the year 1773, is all but an exact transcript
of Goethe's own experience from the day he settled in Wetzlar till the
day he left it. Like Goethe himself, Werther settles in the spring of
the year in a country town, unattractive like Wetzlar, but also, like
Wetzlar, situated in a charming neighbourhood. His first few weeks
there