Werther is desperately in love with the beautiful Charlotte who returns his feelings but, obliged by a promise she made to her dying mother, marries another man - and drives Werther into suicide. When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774, the deeply romantic story about a young poet caused a sensation - and became one of the most read books of its time. The immensely popular novel even inspired a fashion: young men throughout Europe dressed like Werther. This obsession with Goethe's hero took a macabre turn, however, when several young men killed themselves exactly the same way Werther takes his life.
