This second part of Eliza Butler's trilogical survey of Faustian Literature is rightfully established as an incomparable classic in historical/scholarly works of ceremonial Magic. In words set to atone for the whole, she remarks: "How tenacious those ill weeds that have grown apace on the field of magical ritual, that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower"...I, mere Dedicated Literary Servitor, feel blessed to have been fortunate enough to have come across the blazened trails wending strange ways through those fields Butler charted herein while composing my own work setting out to establish the origins of Gothic Literature, & malefic fictions in general. Having found their incubation chambers within the Renaissance Malefic compendiums of the Witch-Hunters, and innumerable fantastic works in response, respect, or revolt against the remnants of Medieval superstition, Butler's works provided the missing arcane key to "What constitutes the Science of ceremonial magic which its devotees call the Art"...so essential if one is to ever makes sense of divers historical arenas such as Art History or Intellectual & Esoteric History.
"For the inventors & practitioners of the rites/often gave proof to Art/to the advantage of the Literature which has survived/its means show evidence of highly creative instincts, poetical imagination and great feeling for beauty & drama/This is what makes the study of Ritual Magic so interesting today"
Butler speaks with a respective authority that avoids disrespect of her human, all too human subjects; all the while exacting the magical crux of the ritual matter without sacrificing the scholarly critical outside-looking-inside perspective. She writes with a surgeon's sharp intelligibility, without becoming cold as the over-scrutinizing scalpel she wields like a pro. A more profound exegesis and wider span of written works of Ritual Magic is to me, inconceivable. Voluminous quotations from original first & critical second-hand sources graces Butler's pages, revealing the odd often monstrous apparitions that people mankind's collective psyche, which have found a wide deep harbor in the texts and treatise' Ritual Magic, whether they be of Nec-Romantic, Goetic & Theurgic persuasion.
From Akkadian Tableture & Greco-Egyptian papyri; to the great Epic Poems of Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome,& even Iceland; to the Hebrew wisdom of Old-testifying Clavicles of Solomon along with Cabalistic Magic tomes; and of course the French Grimoires (those infernal Grammar books of the underground crypts); and finally, into the very heart of Butler's work: The Germanic works of both Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis, as told of FAUSTUS & MEPHISTOPHELES and All the progenitors, Disciples and Poets of each of these categories and sub-categories; from olden times to new.
Butler's works is..."as subtle and as rich as Sprenger, Bodin, Wierus or de Lancre ever imagined; a whole world of wicked spirits, whose personalities are carefully distinguished, their attributes precisely determined, and their hierarchy learnedly classified" (Lenormant's work on the Magic of Chaldea; Butler,5).
Elizabeth Margaret Butler fearlessly summons all the Harrowings of Hells, the Raising of the spirits of Cain. Spanning through brilliant biographical summations of all variety of Black Magi, she treads on Holy and Accursed grounds. From the Wiley likes of Casanova, the Infernal court records and murderous inhuman charges against poor suffering Bluebeard of Orleans; the penultimate renaissance man of viceful passions Cellini and that Nigromant of Norcia; Dee and that earless rogue Kelly and all exponents of the Dark Arts until finally, after extending her hand carefully into the epitome of more modern times she draws many insightful conclusions from the works of LEVI, Francis Barrett, Mathers, Waite, and even Crowley; until laying a stake through the heart of The Myth Of Satanism, she sets the stage for part three. There the Origins of Faustian Literature in Ritual Magic shall have the same genius applied to them in an equally brilliant exposition on the MAGIC OF LITERATURE----having just come in this work from the dangerous adventure of surmising the LITERATURE OF MAGIC---and as pt.2 was to Occultism, exploring Ritual Magic by means of generous quotations and examples drawn from historical and biographical detail; so shall the next work, The Fortunes of Faust, bring Butler's trilogy round full circle, that snake eating itself continuously, the Ouroboros of the world's magical History, which is Our Own.

Postcryptum: Part one of Butler's Faustian work is entitled 'The Myth of the Magus', and is presently available at the Amazonian encampment through Cambridge press Canto editions. Pts.2 & 3 are (re)published by Penn State's Press's extraordinary 'Magic In History' series, perhaps thanks to the Societas Magica, an entirely scholarly unsecret society dedicated to the discipline and adventure of assessing honestly, and finally, the History of Magic.

Anything Dr. Kildare is so hard to find today. I was so happy to see that they actually have a new hard cover book edition. My mom is going to go nuts.

Frederick Faust, Max Brand and Evan Evans--and an assortment of other names--were one fantastic feast of American "Westerns" for me. Only Faust was a "real" person but Harrison Destry and a stageful of others became personal heroes to this then-young reader and I recall the paperback SONG OF THE WHIP as the cream of the cream--the best western I ever read!

i will definately read more of his books. this one could turn out to be a very interesting movie. ron faust definately has a gift.

Joe Faust has considerable experience as an actor in television, film, and commercials. Now a resident of Tucson, Arizona, Tragedy at Tangle Creek is the follow-up to Joe's first mystery, 48 Hours of the Serpent.

When Hank Overton and his lifelong friend, Will Morgan, once again arrive at Blackwater to work on the Tangle Creek Ranch, they have no idea that their lives, and the lives of many of their friends in Blackwater, are about to change. Will discovers that his erstwhile love, Jo Richardson, an attractive client of the dude ranch whom he had a relationship with the summer before, has died in a mysterious manner:

"Will said she rode Billy all last summer. And dammit Hank, she knew the rules about riding alone. This is just why we have that rule. Anyway, she took the trail that follows Tangle Creek up into Butcher Canyon. We figure they got up in the canyon and something spooked Billy, maybe a deer down by the creek. When she came off the horse, her boot caught in the stirrup. You know hot that can happen. He dragged her down into the creek and her head hit some rocks. I guess she came loose then, and Billy made his way back to the ranch."

Hank and Will unwittingly turn into private investigators when more murder victims turn up. Tragedy follows tragedy, and even with the constant revelations Hank and Will uncover, the cause of the murders remain an elusive puzzle until the final pages of an imaginative story. Who doesn't love the image of two hunky but aging cowboys righting a wrong?

Joe Faust has a definite flair for the dramatic, as well as a great working knowledge of the culture of the west. His characters are interesting, the plot is intricate, and Faust does a great job of pulling the reader through the matrix of his story. Being the "wild west," the language is ribald, relationships are intense, and the grammar of the characters is not of Ivy League caliber. But it all makes for an entertaining whodunit that would very easily translate into a television movie. Faust's experience shows he knows his subject, and he has the storyteller's gift. His fertile mind is the key to this everyday whodunit...

As one of the authors, I can tell you that we have gotten many favorable comments over the last ten years as to how much blind and visually impaired students love the stories in this book. Geared for primary aged students, or older students with cognitive disabilities, it contains 17 chapters, each with stories, games, and songs that relate to a particular mobility or envionmental concept. Give it a try - it can enhance your mobility lessons, or be a great way to reinforce concepts.

I loved this book. It's written in that Young Adult style that defines early twentieth century fiction. Today we call it "Disney" style. In fact, it would make a great Disney Movie. A young man feels that to win back his father's respect, he must recover a priceless pearl that is hidden in the handle of one of the first six-shooters. He almost dies along the way, and is later hailed by the Cheyenne as having mystical powers. The struggle to recover the lost pearl leads him through the hardships that eventually mature him. I only wish there was a sequel.

This book is orgranized for easy identification of over 200 wildflowers of the Inland Northwest. You don't have to know what you're looking for to find it. You first search by color, then by number of petals, then by picture (every flower has a photograph). It includes indexes by common names, scientific names, and by color.

The book also contains trivia and folklore associated with many of the flowers. For instance, in it you will find out how Strawberries and Mustard got their names, whose stems were used by the Native Americans of the Northwest to make arrows, and whose leaves' smoke was inhaled as a headache remedy.

On a personal note: This book was written by my parents, just everyday people with a genuine love and respect for nature. All photographs (but one) were taken by my father on his retirement excursions. Unfortunately, he did not live to see it published, but we all rejoice at their novel accomplishment.

If you are a Chemistry teacher and need motivation for your students, if you are a science writer and need an anecdote to enrich an article, if you are a lover of curiosities in science, buy this book. Fascinating.

While the translator deserves praise in his efforts of tackling a difficult work, the result is average at best. The excision of text, as has already been noted by other reviewers, is the biggest reason to avoid this translation, but I will admit that it is perhaps the most accessible and easily read translation available. For those with a serious interest in Goethe and Faust, I would recommend the Walter Arndt/Cyrus Hamlin critical edition from Norton. I believe that to be a much more accurate rendering of Goethe's exemplary work.

I apologize for my ingorance if I'm wrong about this, but I don't believe anyone's translated Faust into English without trying to maintain a rhyme scheme. Readers of Homer will appreciate what I'm talking about when they consider Robert Fagles' wonderful new translations that are especially faithful and powerful because they don't compromise word-choice for what, in translation, can only be a synthetic kind of rhyme. I would much prefer a metrically unbalanced, blank verse extremely faithful word-for-word translation of Goethe than the forced-into-rhymed-verse Kaufmann has presented. I don't mean to belittle Kaufmann's abilities - for what his Faust is, it's great, possibly the best. But I feel like it's Kaufmann's Faust, not Goethe's. Some will argue that this is always the case with translation, but can't we come closer? Is the rhyme THAT important to us? I, for one, would gladly sacrifice it to authenticity.
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Actually, Stuart Atkins' translation is not force-rhymed, so that's probably the one to go with.

I want to open up by saying that this particular translation is above all others. The penguin version is awful. Secondly, I will say that "Faust" is beautifully written, putting Goethe on par with Shakespeare. Goethe captures the phenomena of boredom and low capacity of freedom. The Doctor, Faust, has studied philosophy, science, literautre, and so on, but still feels empty and disatisfed. What would you do? Would you, as he does, take company with the Devil?

There is humour, wit, eloquence of language, and detail. There has to be some reason why it is so praised by scholars today. Even Oscar Wilde, who wrote "The Picture of Dorian Gray," borrowed from it.

Be aware, though, of how difficult the play is to read.