Hamburgische Dramaturgy is a highly influential collection of dramaturgical and theatre critical contributions written between 1767 and 1769. This was when author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing worked as a dramaturg for Hamburg National Theatre. It was not originally conceived as a unified and systematical book, but rather as series of essays on theater, which Lessing wrote as a commentary on the plays of the short-lived Hamburg National Theatre. This collection of 104 short essays represents one of the eighteenth century’s most important critical engagements with the theater and its potential to promote humanistic discourse. In many ways, Hamburgische Dramaturgie defined the new field of dramaturgy, and also introduced the term.