W. Goethe - Faust - 1908

Dana Estes & Company, Editors, Boston. First edition of 1908, no. 14, signed by Dana Estes, of 500 copies numbered in this form.
The 1908 Dana Estes edition reports as many as thirty splendid color plates by Willy Pogany. Brown leather hard cover, the front unfortunately marked with a circular-shaped stain as in the photo, titles and beautiful Pogany decorations in gold. Thick, untrimmed pages, in excellent condition.
Intact binding. The Art Nouveau illustrator Willy Pogany is featured with thirty full-page plates, superbly colored, with protective tissue guards and captions. Refined black-and-white drawings. This edition includes a preface by Roger Ingpen, prologues for the theatre and for Paradise, an appendix with the translation of Goethe's works by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a section of special notes. A solid example of refined book art, with color plates and illustrations that retain all their charm. A valuable artistic edition of Goethe’s great classic, whose extraordinary illustrations are the work of the talented Hungarian artist, whose work enjoyed notable success in both England and the Continent. Willy Pogany has an intimate knowledge of Faust and, aware of the immense scope that Goethe’s drama offers to the imagination, has painted a series of images of rare beauty and originality. The Faustian legend has fascinated 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 a pact with the devil and pays with his soul. The influence of this theme on literature is undeniable. The second part of Goethe’s masterpiece opens with Faust struggling to recover after the death of his beloved Gretchen. Completed just a few months before Goethe’s death, this rich and allusive work weaves together a multitude of philosophical ideas and influences, reworking the medieval myth of Doctor Faust and speculating on the quest for truth in the Enlightenment. 210 pages.”} } | {