The Essential Goethe is the most comprehensive and representative one-volume collection of
Goethe's writings ever published in English. It provides English-language readers easier access
than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history.
Goethe's work as playwright poet novelist and autobiographer is fully represented. The
volume also offers a selection of Goethe's essays on the arts philosophy and science which
give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from
Princeton's authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition the translations are highly readable
and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive
introduction to Goethe's life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.
