Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A poet, dramatist and naturalist whose Faust was written over sixty years and finished a year before his death. The Sorrows of Young Werther made him famous at twenty-five and set off a wave of imitation across Europe. For half a century he served at the Weimar court, occupying himself with mining, botany and a theory of colour that disputed Newton's optics.
Born in Frankfurt am Main on 28 August 1749 exactly at noon, local mean time. The hour is known from his own memoir, Poetry and Truth, which opens by saying that he came into the world 'with the stroke of twelve'.