FOREWORD
THE printed version of the earliest extant English Faust Book that has been modernized for the present edition is the reprint by H. Logeman in theRecueil de Travaux de l’Université de Gand[24efascicule. Gand, 1900]. This is the only reprint of the unique copy of the English Faust Book of 1592, which is in the British Museum, and with which I was able to compare it.
The first edition of the English Wagner Book has likewise only been reprinted once, after one of the two copies in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, by Alfred E. Richards inLiterarhistorische Forschungen[XXXV. Heft. Berlin, 1907], and this edition I have used for the present modernization.
Those who wish to read the Faust and Wagner Books in the old orthography, I would refer to the careful editions of these two scholars. I have only modernized the old spellings and occasionally, for the sake of clarity, the punctuation, but have made no syntactical alterations whatever. Even where, in the case of the Wagner Book, the syntax sometimes obscured the meaning, I have thought it best to let it stand.
The versions printed by Thoms in hisEarlyEnglish Prose Romancesare later than those printed in this volume. His Faust Book is undated, but the British Museum Catalogue gives it the suppositional date 1700. His Wagner Book reproduces the text of 1680. His introduction is, of course, out of date and practically useless.
W. R.