The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Thomas Carlyle’s first original book follows the German poet and dramatist Friedrich Schiller from his boyhood in the small town of Marbach, through the rigid military academy he was forced to attend, his flight from the Duke of Württemberg’s service, and his emergence as one of Germany’s foremost writers. Carlyle traces the making of the major plays and poems, setting the events of a life alongside close discussion of the work itself, and gives full weight to Schiller’s later years at Jena and Weimar and his friendship with Goethe. Written when English readers knew little of German letters, the book did much to introduce that literature to Britain. It also marks the start of Carlyle’s own career, before the dense, thunderous style of his later histories set in.