Goethe's most complex and profound work, Faust was the effort of the great poet's entire lifetime. Written over 60 years, it can be read as a document of Goethe's moral and artistic development.

First published in 1810 in the original German as Zur Farbenlehre, this work outlines Goethe's views on the nature of colours and how they are perceived. It contains detailed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction and chromatic aberration. This English translation with additional notes by the artist Charles Lock Eastlake, published in 1840, was highly praised by Schopenhauer who claimed it was "understood more easily than the...

"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. Goethe's 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...

Faust is a man torn between the urges of the living world and the significance of moral living. He feels nothing, he lives for nothing, and thus engages in a wager with Mephistopheles, the devil himself.

A complete annotated translation of Goethe's "Faust, " plus extensive interpretive notes, "Faust" illustrations and other visual sources used by Goethe, several pieces of Goethe's correspondence and commentary, eleven contemporary reviews by well-known writers, and ten modern pieces of criticism; also includes a Goethe chronology and selected bibliography.