# Is "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther)" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Weygandsche Buchhandlung, 1774) is identified by: Published anonymously at Leipzig for the autumn 1774 book fair: two parts in one volume, 224 pages, small 8vo (approx. The Leipzig 1774 German original is the true first; everything else is a translation or a later authorial revision.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Published anonymously at Leipzig for the autumn 1774 book fair: two parts in one volume, 224 pages, small 8vo (approx
- 16.5 x 10 cm), with an engraved title vignette associated with Adam Friedrich Oeser
- The decisive test is the final page (p
- 224): the first printing carries the errata list (Druckfehlerverzeichnis), which the second printing replaces with a woodcut vignette — described by German dealers as a scythe with a winged hourglass
- The first printing also shows the uncorrected page number 36 where 39 is called for
- Copies vary at pp
- Publisher imprint reads Weygandsche Buchhandlung

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
| Publisher | Weygandsche Buchhandlung |
| Year | 1774 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Published anonymously at Leipzig for the autumn 1774 book fair: two parts in one volume, 224 pages, small 8vo (approx |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Published anonymously at Leipzig for the autumn 1774 book fair: two parts in one volume, 224 pages, small 8vo (approx. 16.5 x 10 cm), with an engraved title vignette associated with Adam Friedrich Oeser. The decisive test is the final page (p. 224): the first printing carries the errata list (Druckfehlerverzeichnis), which the second printing replaces with a woodcut vignette — described by German dealers as a scythe with a winged hourglass. The first printing also shows the uncorrected page number 36 where 39 is called for. Copies vary at pp. 16 and 101 through stop-press correction, and dealers cite these alongside the errata-versus-vignette test rather than in place of it; treat pp. 16/101 as a supporting observation, not a stand-alone point. References: Hagen 80; Goedeke IV/3, 163, 1; Kippenberg I, 3039; Meyer (Werther) 1.

## Is this the true first?
The Leipzig 1774 German original is the true first; everything else is a translation or a later authorial revision. The title itself is a precedence point: the 1774 first edition reads 'Die Leiden des jungen Werthers' with the genitive -s, while Goethe's substantially revised second version (Göschen, Leipzig, 1787) drops it to 'Leiden des jungen Werther' and is a different text, not a reprint. The first edition in English — 'The Sorrows of Werter: A German Story' (London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1779), two volumes in one — was made from a French intermediary rather than from Goethe's German, and is attributed to Daniel Malthus, though Richard Graves has also been proposed; it is collected as the first edition in English, not as a first edition of the work.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issues exist for this title. Weygand's authorised second edition ('Zweyte ächte Auflage', Leipzig, 1775) followed, and unauthorised reprints appeared quickly — among them Christian Friedrich Himburg's Berlin piracy of 1779, which already carries alterations to the authorised 1774/75 text. A Weygand-style Leipzig imprint therefore proves nothing on its own: apply the errata-versus-vignette test at p. 224. Twentieth-century facsimile reprints of the 1774 setting are common and are frequently mistaken for the original.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther)* by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/die-leiden-des-jungen-werthers-the-sorrows-of-young-werther
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.