Dr. Faustus (New Mermaid Series)
Professor James Lake has done all Marlowe scholars and teachers of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama a great service in once again making available Irving Ribner’s magnificent edition of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. Ribner’s edition was the finest of its era (the 1960s) and will find an eager audience in professors who prefer to use individual paperback editions of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries rather than huge, unwieldy anthologies.Lake’s new introduction traces the history of the Faust legend, places Marlowe’s play in its Renaissance context, and provides a brilliant survey of the fate of Marlowe’s Faustus in production on stage, film, and opera. His range of reference is astounding and extends from Simon Magus to St. Theophilis to Goethe to Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau to Orson Welles to Charlie Daniels (“The Devil Went Down to Georgia”) and even to a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. His introduction instructs even as it delights.Professor Samuel Crowl, Ohio UniversityMarlowe's Dr. Faustus is a text used in a varietyof college and university courses including greatbooks courses, basic introductory courses in thehistory of drama, survey courses in the literature ofthe English renaissance, upper-division courses inElizabethan and Jacobean drama, senior seminars in theworks of Shakespeare and his contemporaries or in thehistory of the Faust legend. Irving Ribner's editionof Marlowe was the finest of its generation and itwill be most attractive to professors of broad surveycourses in Western Liiterature and major courses in16th Century drama to have his one-volume edition ofMarlowe's Dr. Faustus once again in print.LAKE'S REISSUEProfessor James Lake has done all Marlowescholars and teachers of Elizabethan and Jacobeandrama a great service in once again making availableIrving Ribner's magnificent edition of Marlowe's Dr.Faustus. Ribner's edition was the finest of its era(the 1960s) and will find an eager audience inprofessors who prefer to use individual paperbackeditions of the plays of Shakespeare and hiscontemporaries rather than huge, unwieldy anthologies.Lake's new introduction traces the history of theFaust legend, places Marlowe's play in its renaissancecontext, and provides a brilliant survey of the fateof Marlowe's Fautsus in production on stage, film, andopera. His range of reference is astounding andextends from Simon Magus to St. Theophilis to Goetheto Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau to Orson Welles to CharlieDaniels ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia")and even toa Calvin and Hobbbes cartoon. His introductioninstructs even as it delights.Samuel CrowlOhio University