In Tivo Volumes, 8vo, with Two Portraits, Bound in Cloth, Price 1 10s. 



THE 



LIFE AND WORKS OF GOETHE, 



IKtijj gktdjyes 0f jjfo gugpe anb Centenaries, 



FROM PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED SOURCES, 



BY G. H. LEWES, 



Author of " Biographical History of Philosophy," " Seaside Studies," etc. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, 



" THE successful biographer of Goethe must possess no ordinary combination of 



qualities and accomplishments And all this our biographer must do without losing 



his hold upon the interest of English readers, to most of whom the names of the 

 second-rate German literati are names, and nothing more. In the case of Mr. Lewes, 

 the tastes and the acquirements thus requisite, are assembled, together with a felicity 

 somewhat rare in the annals of biography. He is himself a man of letters. An acute 

 critic, he possesses at the same time no mean power of original production. His 

 literary knowledge is extensive ; his taste catholic. The master-pieces of the modern 

 literature of Europe are familiar to him in their original languages. His mind is 

 clear-sighted and singularly agile. Such characteristics fit him readily to enter into 



the cosmopolitan many-sidedness of Goethe One excellent feature in this book will 



render it no small service the care which has been taken not to demand too much 

 from the English reader. No pains have been spared to render into English, in a 

 manner not German words merely but German life. The story is told in such a 



way, that we are insensibly placed in the position necessary to its full enjoyment 



This Life and Works of Goethe will live among the best biographies of our language." 



BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. 



"MR. LEWES has produced an acceptable book. He has brought together a 

 number of facts, which have hitherto been so widely scattered as scarcely to be 

 available to any one beyond the sphere of those who make German literature an 

 especial pursuit ; and he has reproduced them in such a readable form as will be 

 appreciated by all who have waded through the records of Vichoff, and the minute 

 dissertations which are so insufferable in the commentators. ATHENJSUM. 



" MR. LEWES is a great admirer of Goethe as it is necessary that a biographer 

 should be but his admiration has not made him shirk facts, apparently to the dis- 

 credit to his hero. He has not written a polemical book ; on the contrary, an 

 animated narrative, that never flags in interest, and leaves the reader at the end of 

 the second volume longing for more ; the work of a man writing on a subject of 

 which he knows much more than he tells, and whose chief difficulty has been to 

 compress his ample materials into the prescribed space." SPECTATOR. 



" A MORE faithful and life-like biography than this we have rarely read. The 

 image of the living man is presented with much skill and much candour. Mr. Lewes 

 speaks often of the 'many-sidedness' of Goethe, and he shows his weak sides and dark 

 sides, as well as his great and brilliant ones, which we all knew. If the reader does 

 not form the same high estimate of Goethe the man as of Goethe the author, it will 

 not be from want of ample materials for forming a judgment. His whole history is 

 here laid open ; and the facts are derived not from books only, but from the testimony 



of those who knew the man, and from other authentic sources of information In 



almost every case, translations, literal or approximative, are given with quotations, so 

 'that no reader need be repelled by ignorance of the German language. With this 

 accommodating spirit, and with his many special qualifications, Mr. Lewes has produced 

 a life of Goethe which must take a standard place in English biographical literature." 



LITERARY GAZETTE. 



" LEWES' Life and Works of Goethe will always remain the standard book on the 

 subject ; and that not only when compared with English, but also with German 

 biographers of the poet. Its style is lively and fascinating ; it contains accurate, full, 

 well selected information, philosophical criticism, and it is written with manifest 



