To elaborate on the terse post by Lapostat, the Werther suicides are somewhat of an urban legend. There is little actual data on the matter. There were probably some, but the phenomenon has clearly grown in the telling. You will notice that while everyone has heard about the Werther suicides, the scope and spread of the supposed epidemic is incredibly vague ("young men over all Europe" etc).
The development of the legend has probably been boosted by the fact that Werther (the book) upset Moral Guardians and, in some places, was banned (for example, in Leipzig from 1775 to 1825) for "advocating suicide".
Edited by LordGro Let's just say and leave it at that.
So we should edit the main page accordingly, shouldn't we? Maybe by adding something like (likely apocryphal) in parenthesis...
Obviously, you should, and do so on the Werther page too. Just say that it is legendary for its copycat activities but no evidence has been found for it.
Did the Werther suicides ever actually happen?
I have heard they were either made up by the equivalent of Yellow Press of his day or greatly exaggerated by Goethe himself and/or his publisher to sell more copies... Any of y'all know more?
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