FAUST      JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

With Thirty Full-Page Coloured Plates

from Original Paintings and Decorations by Willy Pogany

DANA ESTES & COMPANY      BOSTON    1908

First edition thus.  The 1908 Dana Estes edition with thirty grand color plates from the enigmatic Willy Pogany; eighteen more than later early editions.  Large 8" x 10 3/4" design.  Brown marbled boards, flourishing gilt cover titles and Pogany design, brown leather spine wrap, some shelf, corner wear, rub; spine protected with clear adhesive, portion of original leather spine w/gilt accents set in cover.   Thick rough-cut deckled pages generally very good.  Final page remains uncut.  Bind intact; hinges reinforced w/adhesive.  Title page gutter reinforced w/clear adhesive. 

Art nouveau illustrator Willy Pogany is on exhibit w/thirty full-page, beautifully colored plates with captioned tissue guards.  Black & white decoration, vignettes and drawings throughout.  Intriguing book design and craftsmanship.   This edition includes a preface by Roger Ingpen, Goethe's dedication, prologues for the theatre and in heaven, an appendix including Percy Bysshe Shelley's translation of works by Goethe, and a special notes section.   Solid example of fine book craftsmanship with color plates and illustrations remaining attractive.  

A fine art edition of Goethe's great classic, the remarkable illustrations of which are by the clever Hungarian artist whose work attracted considerable attention both in England and on the continent.  Mr. Pogany knows his Faust thoroughly, and realising the immense scope Goethe's drama offers to the imagination, he has painted a series of pictures of rare beauty and originality.  The Faustian legend has captured the imagination for centuries.  In Goethe's Faust, the reader discovers the most famous expression of this old German tale.   The classic story of a man who makes the deal with the devil and pays with his soul.  The influence of this theme on literature cannot be understated.   

The second part of Goethe's masterpiece opens with Faust struggling to recover from the death of his beloved Gretchen.  The quick-witted demon Mephistopheles soon persuades him to look beyond his sorrow and enter the world of politics and power, but the great scholar is still eager for new sensations, and asks Mephistopheles to reveal Helen of Troy to him in a vision.  Overwhelmed by her beauty, Faust demands she be brought back from the underworld - but even this fails to bring him contentment, and his appetite for knowledge remains unsated.   Completed a few months before Goethe's death, this rich and allusive work weaves together a wealth of diverse philosophical ideas and influences, reworking the medieval myth of Dr. Faustus and speculating upon the search for truth in the Age of Enlightenment.   Printed in Great Britain by A. C. Fowler, Moorfields, London, E. C.    4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.  210 pages.  Insured post.