Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A young man arrives in a country town, falls in love with a woman already promised to another, and writes letters about it until there is nothing left to write. Goethe was twenty-four; the book made him famous across Europe, was blamed for a wave of imitative suicides, and embarrassed him for the rest of his long life. Its power is the voice - unguarded, self-dramatising, and horribly recognisable.