Books

A list of printed-word works following the Faust theme. The first section lists primary Faust texts available free on-line. The remainder of the links largely go to Wikipedia.

The Classics – Free On-Line Books

At Projekt Gutenberg-DE (in German):

Drama

  • Anonymous – “Historia von D. Iohan Fausten” (1587).
  • Jacob Bidermann – “Cenodoxus” (1602).
  • Christopher Marlowe’s “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” (1604~1610).
  • Gotthold Lessing’s play, “Doktor Faustus,” mentioned in a contribution to a magazine (1759), but otherwise left unfinished, but collected and published posthumously (1784) in its original, incomplete form.
  • Dorothy L. Sayers’s “The Devil to Pay.”
  • Vaclav Havel’s “Temptation.”
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Faust.”
  • Gertrude Stein’s “Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights.”
  • Michel Carre’s “Faust et Marguerite.”
  • Mark Ravenhill’s “Faust is Dead.”
  • David Mamet’s “Faustus.”

Poetry (Links are to Wikipedia)

Plays

Prose fiction

Anime and manga

Comic books

  • The comic book Faust was published in the 80s and 90s by artist Tim Vigil and writer David Quinn. The book follows a story template similar to the opera Faust, but is an updated version. Rebel Studios, an independent label originally published it, but it was later picked up by Avatar Press and a subsequent sequel series was created. Both are extremely sexual and violent series.
  • Felix Faust is a magical supervillain in the universe of DC Comics. He appeared first in 1962 as an adversary of the Justice League of America.
  • Jack Faust was the name of a magician in Alan Moore’s series Promethea, and is also referred to in other books from the America’s Best Comics imprint.
  • In Help!, Volume 2, Number 1, February 1962, Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder produced “Goodman Goes Playboy.” In it, Goodman Beaver sells his soul to Mephistopheles in order to gain the material and sexual benefits that were extolled monthly in Playboy magazine. This comic strip, however, was legally suppressed by the creators of Archie Comics because it disparaged their cartoon character and his companions.
  • Dr. John Dee, a Renaissance scholar who was a likely inspiration for Marlowe’s version of the “Faust” story, is a character in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint.
  • In the Hong Kong comic strip The World of Lily Wong one of the main characters, Stuart Wright, once worked at a very immoral advertising agency called Faust Associates. Their company logo resembled a devil.
  • The fifth chapter of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta references Faust, and the deal he made.
  • In the Anime Shaman King, one of the subcharacters is called Faust VIII and is portrayed as a depressed, secluded person.

Nonfiction

  • Bertrand Russell’s essay “A Free Man’s Worship.”
  • Oswald Spengler’s book “The Decline of the West” labeled Western society as ‘Faustian’.
  • Peter Gowan’s book “The Global Gamble – Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance.”

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Faust“.

Goethe\'s Faust at Amazon
Goethe Faust Books at Amazon
Link to Marlowe's Dr. Faustus at Amazon
Marlowe's Dr. Faustus at Amazon