ABSTRACT
The earliest known dramatic version of the Faust legend is that of the English dramatist, Christopher Marlowe: The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. Some evidence and argument has been advanced, pointing to the existence of a German Faust play prior to Marlowe’s work. 2 It has even been argued that such a play was a source for both the “Spies Faustbuch” and Marlowe’s play. The possibility that such a play existed cannot be said to be disproved, but unfortunately, if it did exist, we know practically nothing about it and modern authorities in the field have not, in general, been convinced by the arguments advanced. The starting point of the dramatic history of the Faust material still remains Marlowe’s play.
