This is an in-person only event in the British Library Pigott Theatre.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) was an incomparably influential writer - the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of theatre and a leading politician – and A.N. Wilson argues in his ground-breaking new biography that it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era.

A.N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany’s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe’s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing: Faust. Goethe spent over 60 years on this strange and powerful work, that absorbed all the philosophical questions of his time as well as the revolutions and empires that came and went. Faust is his greatest work, but as Wilson explores, it is also something much more: it is the myth of how we came to be modern.

N. Wilson is in conversation with Paul Hamilton of Queen Mary University London.

Doors and Bar open at 18:00. If you’re attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. Followed by a book signing.

Half price tickets available for Members, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups.

A.N. Wilson is one of the outstanding biographers of our times as well as a columnist and celebrated novelist. In 2007 his novel Winnie and Wolf was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, in 2020 The Mystery of Charles Dickens was published to great critical acclaim, Confessions: A Life of Failed Promises (2022).

Paul Hamilton is Emeritus Professor of English and Queen Mary University. His most recent book Realpoetik: European Romanticism and Literary Politics compares the writings of major German, French, and Italian Romantics with an eye to their differences from British Romanticism.

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