The most comprehensive one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English
The Essential Goethe is the most comprehensive and representative one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English. It provides English-language readers easier access than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history. Goetheโs work as playwright, poet, novelist, and autobiographer is fully represented. In addition to the works for which he is most famous, including Faust Part I and the lyric poems, the volume features important literary works that are rarely published in Englishโincluding the dramas Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso and the bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisterโs Apprenticeship, a foundational work in the history of the novel. The volume also offers a selection of Goetheโs essays on the arts, philosophy, and science, which give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from Princetonโs authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition, the translations are highly readable and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive introduction to Goetheโs life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.
Includes:
Selected poems
Four complete dramas: Faust Part I, Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso
The complete novel Wilhelm Meisterโs Apprenticeship
A selection from the travel journal Italian Journey
Selected essays on art and literature
Selected essays on philosophy and science
An extensive introduction to Goetheโs life and works
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749โ1832) was one of the greatest writers of the German Romantic period. Matthew Bell is professor of German and comparative literature at King's College London. His books include Goetheโs Naturalistic Anthropology and Melancholia: The Western Malady.