Her father, Johann Friedrich Vulpius (1725–1786), who worked as an archivist (i.e., file copyist) in Weimar, had studied law for a few semesters but then dropped out of college.

Her father sacrificed everything to enable his eldest son, Christian August, to pursue his education; who would later become a writer of popular historical novels and plays.

Vulpius was not a regular worker but was one of the "idle middle-class girls" (unbeschäftigten Mädchen der mittleren Classen) employed there.

On 13 July 1788, the 39-year-old Goethe met the 23-year-old Vulpius in the Park an der Ilm, where she handed him a petition on behalf of her brother Christian August.

The Weimar court and society (especially Bettina von Arnim-Brentano) dismissed the relationship as illegitimate and improper.

Vulpius courageously opposed the invading soldiers and was able to stop the looting until Goethe received official protection from the French commander.

The Weimar court sculptor Carl Gottlieb Weisser made a bust of Vulpius during 1811–1812; a bronze copy was placed in the garden pavilion of Bad Lauchstädt, designed specially to display it.

Friedrich Schiller's wife Charlotte von Lengefeld wrote of Goethe after Vulpius's death, "The poor man wept bitterly.

"[7] Her grave, lost for decades, was rediscovered in 1888 and marked with a proper gravestone, on which Goethe's farewell verses were inscribed: "You seek, o sun, in vain, / To shine through the dark clouds!

Also in 1916, Etta Federn, an Austrian-born feminist writer, published the first biography of Vulpius,[8] taking a psychological approach to her relationship with Goethe.