About the Library

Goethe’s Faust with illustrations by Willy Pogany

This beautifully illustrated volume is an English translation of Part I of Faust, by the renowned German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Only 100 copies were produced of this “de luxe” 1908 edition, each signed by the illustrator, Willy Pogany. The Library of Parliament has number 97.

This special edition was published by The Musson Book Company, which operated in Toronto between 1894 and the 1960s. The text is a reprint of an 1833 English translation by Abraham Hayward, a 19^th-century English barrister, writer and translator. Hayward’s version is in prose, unlike the original German text, which is in verse.

First published in 1808, Goethe’s Faust is a retelling of a German legend about a dissatisfied scholar who makes a pact with the Devil to experience a moment of ultimate bliss in exchange for his soul. The tale uses magic, demons and witches to explore themes of love, greed and manipulation. It ends in tragedy.

The book features 30 dramatic colour plates throughout, created by Willy Pogany. This prolific Hungarian artist was born Vilmos Feichtmann in 1882. He worked for publications such as Metropolitan Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar as an illustrator, as well as for the Metropolitan Opera as a designer and in Hollywood as an art director. His illustrated version of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1910) is considered a masterpiece.

The book was donated to the Library as part of a bequest of more than 4,000 volumes from the estate of Edward Bruce Bates. The Library’s 1921 Annual Supplement to the Catalogue describes Mr. Bates as a former deputy-postmaster who was a “whole-hearted lover of books.” It also quotes from his will that the trustees were “to allow the Chief Librarian, or Librarians of the Parliamentary Library at Ottawa to select from [his] library such books as he or they shall see fit.”

Details

• The Library’s copy measures 27 cm tall by 20.4 cm wide and contains 210 pages with 30 colour press illustrations.
• It is signed by the illustrator, Willy Pogany.
• The book features gold stamping on the cover and spine, as well as gilding on the top edges of the pages.
• A digitized version of number 71 of the de luxe edition of the book is available on the website Canadiana.