Faust By Goethe Translated By John Aster
New York: Dingwall-Rock, 1925. Limited Edition. Quarto. Item #027376
Number 44 of 1,000 copies of the US issue signed by the artist Harry Clarke. 255 pages, color frontispiece, 7 color plates, 13 black and white plates, and numerous illustrations within the text, all by Harry Clarke. The translator, was not only the first serious translation of Goethe into English but was acclaimed though John Aster was Irish in an English world deeply prejudiced at the time. In 1925, the great Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator Harry Clarke (March 17, 1889)--January 6, 1931) was commissioned for a special edition of Faust (public library) a take radically different from Eugène Delacroix’s illustrations for the Goethe classic, created exactly a century earlier. His later masterpiece, Goethe’s Faust, improved on the dark splendor of these drawings. Never before have these marvelous tales been visually interpreted with such flesh-creeping, brain-tainting illusions of horror, terror and the unspeakable wrote a critic in The Studio. Besides the 21 full page illustrations, there are many very rich textual illustrations which capture the beauty and darkness of the Faust legend.. Bound in 1/4 vellum over gray paper covered boards,spine lettering gilt, illustrated endpapers, top edge gilt, previous owner’s name, a very bright copy.
Price: $850.00