The Youth of Goethe

What it is

This is a biography by P. Hume Brown, published in London in 1913, focused on the early years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, covering his birthplace, family and childhood in Frankfurt.

It was written more than eighty years after Goethe's death, drawing on earlier sources to reconstruct his formative years.

Why it matters

Biographies like this help later readers understand how a writer's family and surroundings may have shaped his later work. Because it was written long after Goethe's lifetime, it reflects the author's own interpretation rather than firsthand memory.

Look closer

• What kinds of sources might a biographer use to write about someone's childhood decades or centuries later?
• Why might a book like this be dedicated to a prominent public figure of its own time?
• How might a biography written in 1913 differ from one written today?