JUNG, JOHANN HEINRICH (174o-1817), best known by his assumed name of HEINRICH STILLING, German author, was born at Grund, near Hilchenbach, Westphalia, on Sept. 12, 1740, of poor parents. Jung became, by his father's desire, school master and tailor, but found both pursuits equally wearisome. After various teaching appointments he went in 1768 with "half a French dollar" to study medicine at Strasbourg. There he met Goethe, who introduced him to Herder. The acquaintance with Goethe ripened into friendship, and it was by his influence that Jung's first and best work, Heinrich Stillings Jugend (1777) was written. In 1772 he settled at Elberfeld as physician and oculist; he began to lecture on technical subjects in the Kameralschule at Kaiserslautern, and in 1787 became professor of economics at Marburg. In 1803 he resigned and returned to Heidelberg. The grand duke Charles Frederick of Baden pensioned him in 1806 and his last years were spent at Karlsruhe, where he died on April 2, 1817. He was married three times and left a numerous
family. His pietistic novels and various other mystical works had considerable influence in their day. But Stilling lives in the autobiography and in the charming picture of him in Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit.
A complete edition of Jung's works was published at Stuttgart (14 vols., 1835-38). His Briefe were published in 1905. There are English translations by Sam Jackson of the Leben (1835), of the Theorie der Geisterkunde (London, 1834, and New York, 1851); and of Theobald, or the Fanatic, a religious romance, by the Rev. Sam. Schaeffer (1846).
See biographies by F. W. Bodemann (1868), J. v. Ewald (1817), R. Peterson (189o), and a critical estimate by G. Stecher, Jung-Stilling als Schriftsteller (1913).