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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.

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