Goethe scribblings

Notgeld Weimar 1921

I came across an old notebook and going through it came across all matter of notes on Goethe and many other subjects. Let me note some of what I wrote concerning Goethe's finances, often only a few lines from a scholarly article. (I have written on Goethe and money a couple of times: in 2008; and in 2015).

For instance, of an article by Dieter Hein on Goethe's "Haushaltsführung," I noted that Goethe was in the 8.2 percent of Weimar taxpayers who had a yearly income of ca. 4000 talers in 1820. By then, he was drawing considerable honoraria from publishing. From a book entitled Goethe und das Geld: Der Dichter und die moderne Wissenschaft (an edited volume by Vera Hierholzer and Sandra Richter), I noted Goethe's ambivalent relationship with Bertuch, whose activities employed between 100 and 150 persons, supporting 10 percent of Weimar's population (including families of employees).

Jochen Klauß, in Goethe und Geld: Goethes Finanzen, mentioned that Goethe's negotiations, from 1827, with publishers, especially Cotta re his Ausgabe letzter Hand, reveal a hard-headed bargainer and an understanding of his commercial worth. According to Klauß, Goethe received in 1816 a yearly honorarium of 3000 talers, corresponding to 20 years of his annual salary of 3,100 talers, what today would be worth 2.5 milion Euro: "etwa das Doppelte von dem, was für den Literatur-Nobelpreis vergeben wird."