Born in 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Goethe gained international fame and renown as a novelist, poet, philosopher, scientist, academic, and statesman. The German philosopher Aether Schopenhauer named Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship one of the four greatest novels ever written, while the American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson selected Goethe as one of six "representative men" in his work of the same name (along with Plato, Emanuel Swedenborg, Montaigne, Napoleon, and Shakespeare). Deep Vellum published a selection of Goethe's poetry, The Golden Goblet, in 2019.

"Ozváth and Turner’s translation gives modern readers a glimpse of what Goethe’s contemporary audience must have felt upon first reading the work. The verse form rhythmically draws us along, singing to us an ancient ballad, while the characters stir our hearts with full-fledged emotions we can recognize in our everyday lives." ––The Arkansas International