Phöbus

The frontispiece of the first issue, designed by Ferdinand Hartmann, shows Phoebus in a chariot, drawn by sun-horses over the town of Dresden.

Kleist wrote: "Thunder on, O thou, with thy flaming steeds, / Phoebus, bringer of day, into infinite space!"

Müller and Kleist having neither well-developed plans nor good contacts with book-sellers, the journal quickly failed and lost them money.

The first issue contained a fragment of Kleist's drama Penthesilea, which, like the journal itself, was poorly received by critics.

Accumulating debts led quickly to tensions between the two men, who wrote the bulk of the magazine's content; after Müller finally sold the magazine behind Kleist's back to a Dresden book-seller, in exchange for the remission of debts, relations between the two men cooled markedly, and in 1809 Müller returned to Berlin.