This book is about a person who has been forgotten more thoroughly than most of the people he interacted with daily. No city guide points to his grave or recounts his life, even though everyone who is interested in one of the most brilliant epochs of German intellectual history knows his name, the era whose normative significance is already contained in the concept of Classicism. Of course, his name is known as that of his wife, and the fact that she was his wife is quickly forgotten, as she is only mentioned because she was overshadowed by the overpowering Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who left such a strong mark on the place of events that few others have. Josias von Stein appears for the first time in a completely new light. The stable master at the Muses' Court in Weimar was a cultured man due to his education.