Wilhelm Tell was published by J.G. Cotta in Tübingen in 1804 — Schiller’s last completed play (he died the following year). It dramatizes the Swiss legend: Tell, a hunter of Uri, refuses to bow to the hat of the Austrian governor Gessler, is forced to shoot an apple from his son’s head, is arrested, escapes, and kills Gessler — an individual act of resistance that precipitates the communal uprising that founds the Swiss Confederation.
The play is Schiller’s most politically optimistic: where Die Räuber destroyed its hero’s revolutionary idealism, and Don Carlos showed political reform crushed by absolutism, Wilhelm Tell presents a successful revolution — justified, proportionate, and leading to democratic self-government rather than chaos. The key is that Tell’s action is not ideological: he kills Gessler not to make a political statement but because Gessler threatened his child. The revolution succeeds because it is grounded in concrete human bonds (family, community, mutual aid) rather than abstract principle.
The apple-shooting scene — arguably the most famous scene in German drama — achieves its power through Schiller’s precise rendering of a father’s terror: Tell must aim at his own child, knowing that his hand may tremble, that his eye may fail, that the wind may shift. The scene’s agonizing duration (Schiller stretches it across multiple speeches and interruptions) makes the audience experience Tell’s suffering physically.
Rossini’s opera (1829) made the story internationally famous; the Overture became one of the most recognizable pieces of classical music. But Schiller’s play remains the definitive literary treatment — and the founding document of Swiss national mythology.
Collecting Wilhelm Tell
First edition (J.G. Cotta, Tübingen, 1804): In German. Rare.
Market values:
- First edition (1804): $2,000–$8,000
- Early nineteenth-century editions: $50–$200
- First English translations (early 1800s): $100–$400
- Modern critical editions: $10–$30
Schiller’s swan song and Switzerland’s national drama. Original first editions are rare; early English translations are more accessible to collectors.