Description

Broadside. Oblong-16mo (c, 150 x 98 mm). Weimar, March 23, 1832. The rejected first version of Goethe's (Aug. 26, 1745 - March 23, 1832) obituary notice. The text reads: "Gestern Vormittag halb Zwölf Uhr starb mein geliebter Schwiegervater. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, nach kurzem Krankseyn, am Stickfluss in Folge eines zurückgeworfenen Katharrhalfiebers. Geisteskräftig und liebevoll bis zum letzten Hauche, schied er von uns im drei und achtigsten Lebensjahre." This version was rejected because the letter "O" in Goethe's second Christian name is shifted too far down and the content could be interpreted as criticism of the attending physician Carl Vogel (1798-1864), Goethe's last doctor of confidence. Rare in the present form, since apparently only a few copies of the broadside were printed, but never dispatched. In the final amended version, the cause of death was finally ".Stickfluss in Folge eines nervös gewordenen Katharrhalfiebers". - This first version on normal vellum paper with wide margins. Added (privately printed): Carlyle, Thomas. Death of Goethe. In English opposite the translation into German, by Johann Peter Eckermann, Goethe's Death. Afterword in both languages by Norbert Miller. 35 pp. 8vo. Orig. wrappers. Berlin, New York, de Gruyter, 1981. - Kippenberg 1288. LITERATURE:GERMAN ; LITERATUR: DEUTSCHE ;