The book is a translation of Goethe’s complete Faust in a modern idiom of prose, directed at an audience that includes the general reader as well as the scholar and specialist. It omits nothing of the original text and remains scrupulously true to every shade of meaning from first to last. Fairley has created a translation that brings the poem so close to contemporary English that it reads like an English work, while sustaining in the reader the conviction that he is dealing with great poetry.

Designers’ Comments: Barker Fairley’s translation, spare, tough, and contemporary, suggested a very lean typographic treatment. The drawings by a young reincarnation of Brueghel required printing on the dark gray stock to reduce their visual noise level. I enjoyed doing this book.