Johannes von Tepl is the author of what has been called "the best and most noteworthy example of poetic prose before Goethe's Werther". His Der Ackermann aus Böhmen (The Plowman from Bohemia, circa 1400/1401; translated as Death and the Ploughman, 1947) was one of the earliest books to be printed in German (between 1460 and 1473). By 1547 it had been republished in seventeen editions. A work that marks a turning point in German literary history, Tepl's Der Ackermann aus Böhmen is both a profound treatment of the problem of mortality and a stylistic tour de force that successfully assimilates the rhetorical forms of the Italian humanists to early New High German prose.

Born around 1350 in either Schüttwa (Sitbor) or Tepl (Teplá) in western Bohemia, Tepl was the son of Henslinus (Hänslein) of Sitbor, a priest. It is not known whether Tepl and his...