GOETHE ([Johann Wolfgang von]). Faustus: From the German. Boosey and Sons, 4, Broad-street, Exchange, And, Rodwell & Martin, New Bond-street, 1821. Lge.post 8vo in half sheets; leaf bearing List of the Plates Engraved by Moses, from Retsch on recto, two line Errata and printer's imprint on verso, at end; pp.viii+86+[ii]; publisher's horizontally ribbed puce limp cloth wrappers, cut flush, ruled and blocked blind on sides, blocked and lettered gilt on front cover; end-papers coated pale yellow. Slight cracking of end-papers; some foxing, mostly of margins; otherwise a nice copy. Scarce.

Apparently the first version of Goethe's ‘Faust' in English, preceding the first listed by CBEL (a partial translation by Shelley) by one year; not listed in J.M. Carre, ‘Bibliographie de Goethe en Engleterre', nor the British Library Catalogue; NUC lists two locations only (Congress and Yale). The plates referred to on the final leaf were not issued with the present volume, but had been published already some time before. As is explained here in the Introduction: ‘It is not pretended that the following pages contain a full translation of this celebrated drama. The slight analysis drawn up as an accompaniment to Retsch's Outlines being out of print, the Publishers felt desirous to supply its place with a more careful abstract of "Faust," which, while it served as a book of reference and explanation for the use of the purchasers of the plates, might also possess some claims to interest the general reader as an independent publication. With this view the most striking passages and scenes of the original have been translated into blank verse, and connected by a detailed description in prose, in which the writer has aimed at nothing more than to render the progress of the plot clearly understood. Some parts are omitted which, it was thought, would be offensive to English readers . . . other parts of the scene have been thrown into narrative, where the difference of taste subsisting between the two nations would have rendered a clear translation of that which in Germany is considered sublime, in our language ludicrous: the general features of the whole have, nevertheless, been endeavoured to be preserved.' The ‘slight outline' referred to here was itself a translation from the German. It was published in England as ‘Extracts from Goethe's tragedy of Faustus, explanatory of the plates by Retsch, intended to illustrate that work; translated by George Soane. London: Printed for J.H. Bohte by G. Schultze, 1820'. It is described by NUC as 8pp. dual language text, plus 26 plates. The present work is evidently entirely different. The binding of the present copy, though clearly a publisher's binding, looks unlikely for 1821, and is presumably secondary: it possibly dates from the early 1830s - and resembles the bindings of musical scores of that period.

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