September 2016 Auction Ends Thursday, September 29th, 5pm Pacific

Lot #95:

First English Translation of Goethe's ''Faustus'' From 1821 -- For the First Time, English Readers Were Entertained With the Now Classic ''Faustian Bargain''

First English translation of ''Faustus: The First Part of the Tragedy'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. London: Boosey and Sons, 1821. Though uncredited, the translation has been attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, although Coleridge denied ever translating ''Faust'' and scholars have argued that it might have been done by Percy Bysshe Shelley. With engraved frontispiece portrait of Goethe. This scarce early edition has the list of plates by Mortiz Retzsch, but the actual plates aren't present and weren't included until a subsequent printing. Measures 5.75'' x 9''. Bound in contemporary gray and tan boards, recently rebacked with a new sympathetic cloth spine. Moderate foxing, otherwise near fine.