THE WORKS

Boston: Dana Estes & Company, [1902]. The "Illustrated Sterling Edition.. 200 x 133 mm. (7 7/8 x 5 1/4"). Five volumes. Edited by Nathan Haskell Dole.
Very attractive butterscotch-colored half calf over marbled boards, raised bands, spine compartments gilt with scrolling cornerpieces and tulip centerpiece, one red and one black morocco label, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. Each volume with an engraved or photogravure frontispiece. ◆Just a touch of rubbing to joints, otherwise IN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE CONDITION, the bindings particularly bright and nearly unworn, and the text seemingly unread.

This very attractive set of "Works" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) includes "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels," "Sorrows of Young Werther," a volume of poems, Goethe's autobiography, and, of course, "Faust." A leading Goethe scholar, Nicholas Boyle, calls his subject "the supreme genius of modern German literature" and "the dominant influence in German literary culture since the middle of the 18th century." Goethe's influence extended far beyond Germany, and he was one of the major figures in the Romantic movement. He brought the words "Sturm and Drang" and "Bildungsroman" into the vocabulary of literary criticism. The bindings here a make a very pretty appearance on the shelf, and the set is almost as new, the volumes opening only with reluctance..