The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: The Elizabethan Play by Christopher Marlowe - Annotated with Supplemental Text

Christopher Marlowe would be murdered before he could polish this, his last play.

Doctor Faustus is derived from “true” accounts and folklore concerning a real-life mountebank cum sorcerer who lived in Germany at the time of Martin Luther and was even know to the famous father of Protestantism. The eponymous Faust (or Faustus) was the subject of early protestant religious tracts warning the common sinner against the heresy of self-aggrandizement, against seeking forbidden knowledge. The wicked Faust is said to have sold his soul to the devil for the sake of such knowledge and supernatural powers.

The text resolves certain conflicts of sources and is liberally annotated with explanations of unfamiliar words, historical references, and classical allusions which Marlowe was fond of making.

Supplementary text includes excerpts of the German Faustbuch (1587) and the English Faustbook (1592), as well as explications of Marlowe’s biography (including his murder) and the legend of Faust in Germany.