The first edition, which appeared in May, 1781, was styled a 'Schauspiel' and bore the Hippocratic motto: _Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat; quae ferrum non sanat, ignis sanat_. The author's name was not given and the work purported (fallaciously) to have been published at Frankfurt and Leipzig. The anonymity was not taken seriously, however, and the Stuttgart medicus soon found himself a bit of a literary lion. He was pointed out on the street as the man who had written 'The Robbers', and distinguished travellers began to call upon him. The reviewers mingled praise and blame, and the most thoughtful of them, one Timme, declared in the Erfurt _Zeitung_ that here if anywhere was the coming Shakspere,--which was a little wild from posterity's point of view, but not an unpleasant thing for a young author to read in a newspaper. Luckily for Schiller his work was not long left to make its way as 'mere literature'. Among those to whom he had sent the sheets was a Mannheim bookseller, named Schwan, who had an eye for dramatic merit. Before Schwan had read many pages it came over him that here was a prize for the stage, and he hurried with it to Baron Dalberg, intendant of the Mannheim theater. Dalberg was easily convinced,--only the work would need to be radically revised. A complimentary letter was addressed to Schiller, proposing a stage version of 'The Robbers' and offering to bring out future plays that he might write. Schiller was quite willing, notwithstanding his preface, and about the middle of August he addressed himself to his task. Profiting by the suggestions of Dalberg and the reviewers, he devoted six weeks to adding, subtracting, re-writing, and re-arranging,--a new masterpiece, he averred, would have cost him less labor. But Dalberg was not yet satisfied; correspondence ensued about various points, Schiller showing himself very tractable, and it was not until the close of the year that the stage version was finally ready. It was played on the 12th of January, 1782,--its author having stolen away from Stuttgart to see the performance,--and scored an unheard-of success.[31] Shortly afterwards the new version, in slightly modified form, was published by Schwan under the name of a 'Trauerspiel' by Friedrich Schiller.