# The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: From the Quarto of 1604

**Author:** Christopher Marlowe
**Tags:** Drama, Faust, -approximately 1540, Tragedies, Germany, Magicians
**Price:** Free
**Formats:** DOCX, EPUB, FB2, PDF, TXT
**Downloads:** 32
**Added:** 10.07.2026
**URL:** https://samolit.com/books/95876

## Description

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus presents Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan tragedy in its earliest surviving printed form, the 1604 quarto, edited here by the Reverend Alexander Dyce. This is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for magical power. Written in the late sixteenth century and first performed around 1594, the play follows Faustus' rise as a magician through his pact with Lucifer, facilitated by the demon Mephistopheles, and his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation.

Drawing on the German Faustbook tradition, this play is based on the German Faustbuch, the first dramatised version of the Faust legend concerning a scholar's dealings with the devil. Dyce's edition preserves the leaner, more austere shape of this so-called A-text, later expanded in the 1616 quarto. Readers encounter Faustus's conjuring of spirits, his bargain sealed in blood, his years of forbidden power and pleasure, and the terrifying reckoning that follows at midnight. A cornerstone of English Renaissance drama, this scholarly edition offers students and general readers alike a faithful window into the play as it first reached the printed page.