[?]First separate edition of part I and a fragment of part II together. Goethe’s famous adaptation of the myth of Faust, the scholar who sells his soul to the devil, grew out of the writer’s lifelong fascination with the topos: he had seen a puppet theatre version as a child, and produced a first draft – the Urfaust – by 1775, although this would not be published during his lifetime, and only appeared in print in 1887. Encouraged by Schiller, Goethe took up work on Faust again in 1797, and its completion would occupy him for the rest of his life, resulting in a number of different texts and editions: a fragment was finished in 1788 and first published in 1790; the completed part I appeared in 1808; the first act of part II through to l. 6036 (‘Lustgarten’) was finished by Goethe and sent to J.G. Cotta (his publisher) in 1827, and appeared (together with part I) in volume 12 of the Ausgabe letzter Hand of Goethe’s works in 1828; and part ii was completed in 1831, but would not be published in its entirety until shortly after the author’s death on 22 March 1832.

The present edition was published in the year of Goethe’s death, and presents the final ‘authoritative’ text in print at the time of his death, comprising part I of Faust in its entirety and the first act of part II through to l. 6036 (i.e. the text first published in Goethe’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand in 1828; the present edition includes ll. 4335-4342, the two stanzas in part I which were not present in earlier texts). The fact that this edition was produced in the year of Goethe’s death; that it purports to have been printed in Heidelberg – a city of the highest importance to German romanticism and significant in Goethe’s life – but was actually printed in Paris; and that it presents the final text of Goethe’s lifetime, all suggest that it was produced to satisfy the demand for Goethe’s works in the immediate aftermath of his death.

According to Goedeke, the first two separate publications of part I together with the first act of part II (i.e. this text), were an edition printed by Renouard and published by Barrois fils in Paris in 1832 (IV/3, p. 615, 5.1.a) and an edition ‘Heidelberg, 1832. gr. 8. [Pariser Nachdruck. E. Heidloff und Campe]’ (IV/3, p. 615, 5.1.b). It seems likely, however, that these two editions are one and the same, and that the spurious imprint ‘Heidelberg. 1832’ and information gathered from other sources created a ‘ghost’ and caused the belief that there were two separate editions; certainly, the contemporary Bibliographie de la France XXI (1832) only records one edition of Faust produced in France in 1832: ‘810 FAUST, ein tragedie [sic] von Goethe. Erster und zweiter theil. (Faust, tragédie de Goethe. Première et deuxième parties.) In-12 […] Imp. de P. Renouard, à Paris. – A Midelberg; et à Paris, chez Théophile Barrois fils, chez Paulin, Heideloff et compagnie, Bobée et Hingray’ (p. 93).

Since the transcription of the title in the Bibliographie de la France is not completely accurate, it is possible that ‘Midelberg’ is a mistranscription of ‘Heidelberg’, and that ‘Heideloff et compagnie’ should read ‘Heideloff et Campé’; this is confirmed in part by the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s description of its copy: ‘Faust, eine tragödie von Goethe. Ier und IIer Theil. – Heidelberg (Paris, gedruckt bei P. Renouard), 1832’ (Catalogue générale des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1915), XLII, p. 595). Therefore, it seems reasonable to hypothesise that there was only one edition of Faust with this text published in 1832, which was printed in Paris by Paul Renouard and published by either Heideloff et Campé alone or by a syndicate composed of Heideloff et Campé, Théophile Barrois fils, Paulin, and Bobée et Hingray, but given the imprint ‘Heidelberg’ to reduce the likelihood of the detection of the publisher of the piracy.

If this conjecture is correct, then this 1832 edition is the first separate publication of part I together with a fragment of part II of Goethe’s Faust. The complete text of part II was first published separately the following year as Faust. Eine Tragödie von Goethe. Zweyter Theil in fünf Acten by Cotta (1833), and both parts were finally published together as a separate work by Cotta as Faust. Eine Tragödie von Goethe. Beide Theile in Einem Bande in 1834.

Katalog der Goethe-Bibliothek Dorn 163; Engel, Zusammenstellung der Faust-Schriften 718 (‘Renouard (Barrois fils)’) and 719 (‘E. Heidloff und Campe’); Goedeke IV/3, p. 615, 5.1.a (‘Renouard (Barrois fils)’) and 5.1.b (‘E. Heidloff und Campe’); cf. PMM 298 (1834 edition of parts I and II).