No writings by Johann Sebastian Bach were published during his lifetime.

He declined Johann
Mattheson's invitation to write an autobiographical sketch for inclusion in the Ehrenpforte.[1] There is
little biographical material to be found in the compositions published during his lifetime: the glimpse
perceived from the dedication of The Musical Offering to Frederick the Great being a small exception.
There are however some letters by the composer in which he gives autobiographical detail, including the
letter he wrote in 1730 to Georg Erdmann, and the letter he had joined to the score of his Mass for the
Dresden court in 1733.[2] Other contemporary sources include archived reports, like those of the
decisions of the Leipzig city council.[

Contemporary publications, like Johann Mattheson's Beschützte Orchestre, Johann Adolph Scheibe's
Critischer Musicus and Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, rather write about Bach's
music than about his life.[4][5][6] Bach's entry in Johann Gottfried Walther's 1732 Lexikon is a rare
exception in giving biographical information on the composer.