Faustus: from the german of goethe.with portrait of the author; and An Appendix containing the may-day night scene translated by percy bysshe shelley

GOETHE, [Johann Wolfgang von]. SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe

Published by Edward Lumley, London, 1832

About this Item

vii, [1], 79pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece (misbound after the title) and a further 27 engraved plates (several displaced). Later calf-backed marbled paper boards, contrasting red calf lettering-piece. A trifle rubbed and marked. Scattered spotting. William St. Clair's copy, with his pencilled ownership inscription and a note in his hand to recto of FFEP: 'The translation by PBS of the May Day Night Scene is presumably reprinted from the version in The Liberal. The Note is also taken (with some omissions) from The Liberal. Does the attribution 'L H' [Leigh Hunt] imply that Hunt was concerned with the book as a whole? Lumley published The Beauties of Percy Bysshe Shelley (pirated but claiming authority from Leigh Hunt) in 1831.' An anonymous translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's (1749-1832) magnum opus, appended by Percy Bysshe Shelley's (1792-1822) translation of the May-day Night scene. Shelley's obsession with Faust spanned the majority of his writing career, beginning with a translation of the dramaâ s opening thousand lines in 1815 and culminating in a poetic rendition of the 'Prolog im Himmel' and 'Walpurgisnacht' finished shortly before his untimely death. William St. Clair (1937-2021), British scholar and senior civil servant, notable as the author of The Godwins and the Shelleys, The Biography of a Family (1989) and The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004). Size: Quarto.

Seller Inventory # AQ27628

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Faustus: from the german of goethe.with portrait of the author; and An Appendix containing the may-day night scene translated by percy bysshe shelley
• Publisher: Edward Lumley, London
• Publication Date: 1832
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: New edition.