Philip Otto Runge was, alongside Caspar David Friedrich, not only the most significant German painter of the early Romantic period but also one of the most versatile artists of the 19th century, "an individual, as rarely born," as Goethe remarked about him. His letters, writings, and also artistic fairy tales are presented and commented on in this critical edition. The edition begins with the collection of letters from 1795 to 1803 and the accompanying commentary volume. It documents Runge's contact with a variety of his most important contemporaries: Ludwig Tieck, Clemens Brentano, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Caspar David Friedrich, and August von Klinkowström, to name just a few. The volumes presented here offer, for the first time, all letter testimonies and critically present the sources preserved in autograph according to editorial criteria. Thus, this edition also replaces the previous one.