 Although he had a high reputation during his lifetime, to many contemporaries like Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel and Lessing he was not to be taken seriously.In his early twenties he had a brief affair with Charlotte Kestner "née" Buff, the model for Lotte in "The Sorrows of Young Werther".The girl who had rejected Goethe in 1772 found herself rejected by Ramdohr in 1781.