Though much feted in his day, August Lafontaine (1758-1831) has since been relegated to almost total oblivion. This monograph on him takes a socio-historical and readership-oriented perspective, reconstructing and analyzing the life and work of one of the most prolific and widely appreciated late Enlightenment purveyors of easy-to-read literature. In the course of the 'reading revolution' and parallel to the apogee of Classical and Romantic literature in Germany, the success of his serially produced love stories and family sagas made him the first independent freelance author and most widely-read novelist in Germany.