Tag Archive: 0Goethe

The preface to this little book from 1821, by Major James Bell of the East York Militia, reads: ‘The Letters which I am about to lay before the public, form all together but one small leaf in the history of literature; but it is a leaf which relates to the leading era in the life […]

This is a copy of the first edition in English of Bettina von Arnim’s first book, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (1835), translated in part by the author herself and privately printed in Berlin.  ‘The printing had almost come to end [sic], when by a variance between the printer and the translator, it was interrupted; […]

Among the Faust–related items included in our Anglo-German Cultural Relations catalogue, item 214 may be the most charming. Faust and ‘Phisto is a cheeky example of Victorian Goetheana that appeared in the Sixteenth Season of Beeton’s Christmas Annual (London, Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1875). ‘In “Faust and ’Phisto” Goethe’s famous creation will be adapted and […]

German interest in folksongs began in the middle of the eighteenth century, stoked in no small part by the Europe-wide mania for Ossian.  Thomas Percy’s influential Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) was also much admired, and the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, who had been sent a copy by Rudolf Erich Raspe (of Munchausen fame) […]

The story of Anglo-German cultural relations is inextricably linked with the British royal family, particularly in the Victorian era. This connection is perhaps most apparent in item of 204 of Anglo-German Cultural Relations (also listed as no. 16 in our New York book fair list): an inscribed copy of the first edition of German Hymns […]

Of the Werther-related items in Anglo-German Cultural Relations, item 37 stands out as particularly striking and visual: a group of three etchings with stipple by Bartolozzi after Bunbury and Ramberg, each illustrating a scene from the novel. Goethe’s influential novel first appeared in English, via a French translation, in 1779, and soon grabbed the attention […]