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Doctor Faustus

With The English Faust Book

Christopher Marlowe author David Wootton editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Hackett Publishing Co, Inc

Published:15th Mar '05

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Doctor Faustus cover

This edition of Doctor Faustus features annotated versions, with modernized spelling and punctuation, of the 1604 A-text and the 1592 text of Marlowe's source, the English Faust Book--a translation of the best-selling Historia von Johann Fausten published in Frankfurt in 1587, which recounts the strange story of Doctor John Faustus and his pact with the spirit Mephistopheles.

David Wootton's Introduction charts Marlowe's brief, meteoric career; the delicate social and political climate in which Doctor Faustus was staged and the vexed question of the religious sensibilities to which it may have catered; the interpretive significance of variations between the A and B texts; and the shrewd and subversive uses to which Marlowe put the English Faust Book in crafting, according to Wootton, a drama in which orthodox Christian teaching triumphed, but in which Faustus has all the best lines.

This is an excellent edition; I really appreciate the clear Introduction and the exceptionally useful notes. I look forward to using this text with a freshman literature class who will really benefit from the helpful textual apparatus. --Charlotte England, Department of English, Salisbury University


The inexpensive paperback will allow this student-friendly text to be added to the reading list of a variety of high-school and college courses. Teachers as well as students will find the Introduction here very useful. --Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance


"The decision to embed much of the B-text (1616) into the full A-text (1604) of the play was a creative ‘compromise’ (as Lynch admits) in order to offer students as much of Marlowe’s full intention about the story as possible. The gray highlighting of the incorporated “B” textual material allows the reader access to the later textual material but also does not so intrude that the original “A” text cannot be read independently.... The meshing of the two versions can be very informative especially for teachers of theater and performance/ drama and teachers of writing, as well as for instructors in literature. I can imagine a theater instructor, for example, discussing with students what was/is lost/gained/ changed moving from the 1604 to the 1616 version of the play and how those changes might impact not just the themes but the actual performances of the play. An instructor in writing clearly could do much with the Lynch edition, especially in discussions about revision/ rewrites and the process of play writing." --June-Ann Greeley, Professor of Languages and Literature, Sacred Heart Univer

ISBN: 9780872207295

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 171g

192 pages