The Sorrows of Young Werther was Goethe''s first major success, turning him from an unknown into a celebrated author practically overnight. Goethe distanced himself from The Sorrows of Young Werther in his later years. He regretted his fame and making his youthful love of Charlotte Buff public knowledge. He wrote Werther at the age of twenty-four, and yet most of his visitors in his old age knew him only from this work, despite his many others. He even denounced the Romantic movement by calling it "everything that is sick."

The Sorrows of Young Werther was Goethe''s first major success, turning him from an unknown into a celebrated author practically overnight. Goethe distanced himself from The Sorrows of Young Werther in his later years. He regretted his fame and making his youthful love of Charlotte Buff public knowledge. He wrote Werther at the age of twenty-four, and yet most of his visitors in his old age knew him only from this work, despite his many others. He even denounced the Romantic movement by calling it "everything that is sick."