The Man Who Was Goethe: Memoirs, Letters & Essays (Annotated)
Enriched Edition. Memoirs, Letters, and Essays on Weimar Classicism, Romantic Europe, and the Cultivation of SelfBy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Length79h 57m
About this audiobook
The Man Who Was Goethe: Memoirs, Letters & Essays gathers the self-revealing prose through which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe becomes not merely a monument of German letters but an active, searching mind. Through recollection, correspondence, criticism, and reflection, the volume traces his intellectual range: art, science, friendship, politics, love, and the discipline of literary creation. Its style moves between classical poise and intimate immediacy, situating Goethe within Weimar Classicism while also illuminating the Romantic age he helped provoke and resist. Goethe's long life made him uniquely fitted to such a book. Born in 1749, he became famous with The Sorrows of Young Werther, later reshaped European drama with Faust, served as statesman in Weimar, and pursued studies in botany, optics, and morphology. His memoirs and letters reflect a writer for whom experience, observation, and Bildung—the cultivation of the self—were inseparable principles. This collection is recommended to readers seeking the living Goethe behind the canonical works. It offers students, scholars, and general readers a refined entry into his personality, method, and age, revealing why his thought remains central to modern European culture.
This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.
- A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions.
- The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing.
- A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation.
- A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists.
- A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths.
- Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts.
- Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
Audiobook details
GenreBiography and Memoir
Length79 hrs 57 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateApr 18, 2019
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Introduction
3Author Biography
4Historical Context
5Synopsis (Selection)
Show all chaptersShow less
6The Man Who Was Goethe: Memoirs, Letters & Essays
7Biography
8Life of Johann Wolfgang Goethe
9Chapter I.
10Chapter II.
11Chapter III.
12Chapter IV.
13Chapter V.
14Chapter VI.
15Chapter VII.
16Chapter VIII.
17Chapter IX.
18Chapter X.
19Chronological List of Works
20Autobiography and Memoirs
21Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life
22Author's Preface
23PART THE FIRST
24First Book. Childhood—the City of Frankfort
25Second Book. The New Paris—Frankfort Citizen
26Third Book. Occupation of Frankfort by the French
27Fourth Book. Studies—The Bible—Frankfort Characters
28Fifth Book. Gretchen—Coronation Ceremonies
29PART THE SECOND.
30Sixth Book. Illness and Recovery—Leipzig
31Seventh Book. Leipzig (continued)—German Literature
32Eighth Book. Art—Dresden—Return from Leipzig
33Ninth Book. Strasbourg
34Tenth Book. Strasbourg (continued)—Herder—Tour in Alsace and Lorraine—Frederika
35PART THE THIRD.
36Eleventh Book. Frederica (continued)—Return from Strasbourg
37Twelfth Book. Merck—Wetzlar; the Imperial Chamber—Charlotte
38Thirteenth Book. Goetz von Berlichingen and Werther
39Fourteenth Book. Lenz—Lavater and Basedow—Cologne
40Fifteenth Book. Moravians—"The Wandering Jew"—Zimmerman—"Clavigo"
41PART THE FOURTH.
42Sixteenth Book. Spinoza—Jung (Stilling)
43Seventeenth Book. Lili—Betrothal—Ulrich von Hutten
44Eighteenth Book. Hans Sachs—The Stolbergs—Switzerland
45Nineteenth Book. Lavater—"Egmont"
46Twentieth Book. Kraus—Daemonic Influence—Heidelberg—Departure for Weimar
47Maxims and Reflections
48Translator's Preface
49II
50III
Die wichtigsten Werke von Goethe (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe420h 50m$1 · $0.00
Harvard Classics - Complete Collection of the Greatest Works of World Literature (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Thomas Carlyle, Plato, Charles Darwin, Dante Alighieri, Euripides, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles Lamb, Samuel Johnson, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Joseph Addison, Leigh Hunt, Epictetus, Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jonathan Swift, Christopher Marlowe, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, William Hazlitt, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Daniel Defoe, Aesop, Richard Henry Dana, John Dryden, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, John Ruskin, Robert Burns, David Garrick, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Izaak Walton, John Bunyan, Homer, Edmund Burke, Plutarch, Molière, Aeschylus, Sophocles, William Makepeace Thackeray, Benjamin Franklin, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Robert Browning, Oliver Goldsmith, John Milton, Aristophanes, Virgil, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Penn, Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon, Adam Smith, Alessandro Manzoni, Abraham Cowley, Ben Jonson, John Woolman, Sydney Smith, Marcus Aurelius, Hans Christian Andersen, George Gordon Byron, Thomas à Kempis, Richard Steele, Thomas Browne, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Miguel de Cervantes, Friedrich von Schiller, Pliny the Younger, Saint Augustine1376h 45m$2 · $0.00
Iphigenie auf Tauris (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe3h 41m$1 · $0.00
Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe17h 29m$2 · $0.00
180 Masterpieces of World Literature (Vol.2) (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Theodor Storm, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rabindranath Tagore, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, John Buchan, Confucius, George MacDonald, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Swift, Edith Wharton, Benito Pérez Galdós, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Trollope, Alexandre Dumas, William Dean Howells, Virginia Woolf, William Walker Atkinson, Kenneth Grahame, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Homer, Gaston Leroux, Ford Madox Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Kate Chopin, John Milton, Edgar Wallace, Laozi, James Joyce, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Kakuzo Okakura, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton, Jerome K. Jerome, L. M. Montgomery, W. Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lewis Wallace, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, George Bernard Shaw, Cao Xueqin, Emile Zola, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, P. B. Shelley, Elizabeth von Arnim, Dante, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Émile Coué, George Weedon Grossmith, Willkie Collins, D.H. Lawrence, Machiavelli1195h 9m$2 · $0.00
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe6h 22m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Plays of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe37h 32m$2 · $0.00
Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe33h 52m$1.50 · $0.00
Christian Collection: Scripture, History, Theology, Spirituality and Fiction (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Martin Luther, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Dante Alighieri, Henry Van Dyke, David Hume, James Allen, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Murray, John Bunyan, Grace Livingston Hill, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lew Wallace, John Milton, Charles M. Sheldon, Ludwig Feuerbach, G. K. Chesterton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas à Kempis, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Spurgeon, Prentice Mulford, St. Teresa of Ávila, Saint Augustine, Florence Scovel Shinn, H. Emilie Cady, Gregory of Nyssa, Pope Gregory I, Athanasius of Alexandria, John of Damascus, Brother Lawrence, Arthur Pink1167h 4m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Poems (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe18h 4m$2 · $0.00
Goethe: Romane & Novellen (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe83h 18m$1 · $0.00
Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung, Lehrjahre & Wanderjahre (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe56h 42m$1.50 · $0.00
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship & Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe42h 10m$2 · $0.00
Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe5h 37m$1 · $0.00
Die Leiden des jungen Werther (Klassiker der Weltliteratur) (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe6h 27m$1 · $0.00
Pakt mit dem Teufel: Meisterwerke der Fantasie (Kommentiert)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Honoré de Balzac, Felix Salten, E .T. A Hoffmann, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Klaus Mann, Oscar Wilde76h 17m$1 · $0.00
The Elective Affinities (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe12h 17m$2 · $0.00
The Greatest Religious Novels of All Time (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Mark Twain, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Dante Alighieri, George MacDonald, Anatole France, Henry Van Dyke, Robert Hugh Benson, Arthur Christopher Benson, Leonid Andreyev, John Bunyan, Grace Livingston Hill, Voltaire, Paul Laurence Dunbar, John Milton, Charles M. Sheldon, Marie Corelli, John Henry Newman, James Joyce, G. K. Chesterton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Prentice Mulford313h 43m$2 · $0.00
The Collected Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Annotated)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe199h 46m$2 · $0.00
Ulysses S. Grant: Life of the Fearless General & Commander-in-Chief (Complete Edition - Volumes 1&2)Ulysses S. Grant30h 44m$0.99 · $0.00
Left for DeadEbony Canion5h 34m$17
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Annotated)John Muir10h 13m$0.99 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m$29 · $0.00
A Bridge Not Too FarDeepak Ohri4h 55m$15
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m5.0 (1)$24 · $0.00
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings With George Müller (The Complete Four-Volume Edition)George Müller43h 37m$2 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m5.0 (2)$29 · $0.00
Scandal Between the Sheets & Stranded with the Tempting StrangerBrenda Jackson9h 22m$24 · $0.00
The complete novelsJane Austen73h 18m$3.50 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m5.0 (1)$20 · $0.00
The Boys and MeMark Miller8h 32m$23
You may also like
Testtrainer Logisches DenkenGRETA CRENSHAW10h 11m$12.50 · $0.00
Poor Charlie’s AlmanackGrover Gardener, Charles T. Munger13h 9m5.0 (1)$18 · $0.00
The Master Key SystemCharles F. Haanel6h 33m$4 · $0.00
The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)Arthur Schopenhauer20h 17m$2.30
An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingDavid Hume5h 59m$2.30
THE LAW OF SUCCESS Lesson Thirteen – COOPERATIONNapoleon Hill1h 39m$4.60 · $0.00
Democracy and Education An Introduction to the Philosophy of EducationJohn Dewey15h 33m$2.30
Chess Strategy (Annotated)Edward Lasker9h 32m$2 · $0.00
1000 Paintings of GeniusVictoria Charles, Joseph Manca, Megan McShane, Donald Wigal14h 32m$18 · $0.00
The Art of ControversyArthur Schopenhauer3h 13m$6 · $0.00
LempickaPatrick Bade2h 3m$15 · $0.00
InflationIvy N. Crowhurst2h 19m$2.30 · $0.00
The Art of Logical Thinking, or, The Laws of ReasoningWilliam Walker Atkinson3h 50m$2.30
Insight OutTina Seelig5h 13m$24 · $0.00
Blackboard DrawingFrederick Whitney25m$2 · $0.00
Working TogetherMichael D. Eisner, Aaron R. Cohen7h 50m$26 · $0.00
The Seven Tensions of NegotiationCash Nickerson5h 35m$20
Man a Machine (Annotated)Julien Offray de La Mettrie7h 43m$2 · $0.00
Kiasunomics 2: Economic Insights for Everyday LifeSumit Agarwal, Ang Swee Hoon, Sing Tien Foo8h 21m$11 · $0.00
Felicien RopsPatrick Bade58m$13 · $0.00