Historia von D. Johann Fausten (chapbook)

The *Historia von D. Johann Fausten* is a chapbook collecting tales about the life of Johann Georg Faust. Its author is unknown, but the work was printed in 1587 by Johann Spies in Frankfurt am Main. This book became the primary source for Christopher Marlowe’s play *The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus*, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s closet play *Faust*, and Alfred Schnittke’s opera of the same name. The text appears to have been composed in the latter half of the sixteenth century, though no precise composition window is universally agreed upon; the first known printed edition is 1587.

The work survives in two forms: a manuscript (the scribal status of which is not definitively established) and the 1587 imprint from Johann Spies’s well-known Frankfurt publishing house. The Spies edition is the more famous version. It first appeared in September 1587, was reprinted that same year, and then frequently afterward. Each new printing added more stories about Faust, usually old folktales with Faust’s name inserted. Because Spies’s printing house had a reputation for religious works, the 1587 edition is also packed with moral commentary. These “admonitions to the Christian reader” proved so popular that by the end of the century they were a prominent feature of printed Faust books, though the bulk of the text remained the Faust narrative itself. Over time, however, the sloppy and repetitive nature of these additions hurt the book’s appeal. As public interest in religious controversy waned, the book became less attractive.

An English version based on the *Historia* appeared in 1592, known as the “English Faust Book.” The *Historia* may also have been the source for Thomas Roscoe’s 1826 translation, “History of that Renowned Arch Sorcerer, Doctor J. Faust,” published in *The German Novelists*. The manuscript version of the *Historia* was edited by H. G. Haile for Erich Schmidt Verlag in 1960 and for Carl Winter Verlag in 1996. Haile also published a translation, *The History of Dr. Johann Faustus*, in 1965 through the University of Illinois.