Goethe
His Faustian Life - The Extraordinary Story of Modern Germany, a Troubled Genius and the Poem that Made Our World
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Goethe
Buy for $16.23
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
A.N. Wilson
-
By:
-
A. N. Wilson
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Goethe, written and read by A. N. Wilson
Goethe remains one of the most influential figures in modern literature and thought.
Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era.
A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany’s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe’s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing – Faust.
Goethe spent over 60 years writing his retelling of Faust, a strange and powerful work that absorbed all the philosophical questions of his time as well as the revolutions and empires that came and went. It is his greatest work, but as Wilson explores, it is also something much more - it is the myth of how we came to be modern.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Rogues and Scholars
- A History of the London Art World: 1945-2000
- By: James Stourton
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
On October 15, 1958, Sotheby's of Bond Street staged an "event sale” of seven Impressionist paintings. The seven lots went for £781,000—at the time the highest price for a single sale. The event established London as the world center of the art market and Sotheby's as an international auction house. It began a shift in power from the dealers to the auctioneers and paved the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years.
By: James Stourton
-
Doctor Faustus
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 13
Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul—and the ability to love his fellow man.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Literary self flagellation
- By Lipton101 on 02-13-25
By: Thomas Mann
-
The Notebook
- A History of Thinking on Paper
- By: Roland Allen
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did these indispensable implements come from? How did they revolutionize our lives? And how can using a notebook help change the way you think? In this wide-ranging history, Roland Allen reveals how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A fascinating look at an often overlooked powerful tool.
- By Andrew Darlow on 12-28-24
By: Roland Allen
-
Embers of the Hands
- Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
- By: Eleanor Barraclough
- Narrated by: Eleanor Barraclough
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Author is an excellent reader!
- By K on 02-11-25
-
We Do Not Part
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, E. Yaewon - translator, Paige Aniyah Morris - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Powerful, Tough Listen
- By ncnickle on 01-26-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
The Impossible Man
- Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius
- By: Patchen Barss
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10
When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a “world behind the world” of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world’s most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists. Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and beauty of his discoveries.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Flawed
- By Michael on 01-12-25
By: Patchen Barss
-
Rogues and Scholars
- A History of the London Art World: 1945-2000
- By: James Stourton
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
On October 15, 1958, Sotheby's of Bond Street staged an "event sale” of seven Impressionist paintings. The seven lots went for £781,000—at the time the highest price for a single sale. The event established London as the world center of the art market and Sotheby's as an international auction house. It began a shift in power from the dealers to the auctioneers and paved the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years.
By: James Stourton
-
Doctor Faustus
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 13
Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul—and the ability to love his fellow man.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Literary self flagellation
- By Lipton101 on 02-13-25
By: Thomas Mann
-
The Notebook
- A History of Thinking on Paper
- By: Roland Allen
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did these indispensable implements come from? How did they revolutionize our lives? And how can using a notebook help change the way you think? In this wide-ranging history, Roland Allen reveals how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A fascinating look at an often overlooked powerful tool.
- By Andrew Darlow on 12-28-24
By: Roland Allen
-
Embers of the Hands
- Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
- By: Eleanor Barraclough
- Narrated by: Eleanor Barraclough
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Author is an excellent reader!
- By K on 02-11-25
-
We Do Not Part
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, E. Yaewon - translator, Paige Aniyah Morris - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Powerful, Tough Listen
- By ncnickle on 01-26-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
The Impossible Man
- Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius
- By: Patchen Barss
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10
When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a “world behind the world” of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world’s most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists. Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and beauty of his discoveries.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Flawed
- By Michael on 01-12-25
By: Patchen Barss
-
Question 7
- By: Richard Flanagan
- Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 26
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave laborer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Who loves longer?
- By Diane on 03-26-25
By: Richard Flanagan
-
Every Valley
- The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah
- By: Charles King
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is arguably the greatest piece of participatory art ever created. Adored by millions, it is performed each year by renowned choirs and orchestras, as well as by audiences singing along with the words on their cell phones. But this work of triumphant joy was born in a worried age. Britain in the early Enlightenment was a place of astonishing creativity but also the seat of an empire mired in war, enslavement, and conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Untitled Praise
- By Michael on 11-19-24
By: Charles King
-
Lazarus Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Price
- Narrated by: Robb Moreira
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 28
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing. In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Did not hold together
- By M. Wagstaff on 12-02-24
By: Richard Price
-
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
- A Memoir
- By: Curtis Chin
- Narrated by: Curtis Chin
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fun and enlightening read.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-13-23
By: Curtis Chin
-
Goethe: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Six Full-Cast Dramatisations Including Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther and More
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Simon Callow, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jack Farthing, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most famous and celebrated dramas of all time.
-
The Embarrassment of Riches
- An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
Simon Schama explores the mysterious contradictions of the Dutch nation that invented itself from the ground up, attained an unprecedented level of affluence, and lived in constant dread of being corrupted by happiness. Drawing on a vast array of period documents and sumptuously reproduced art, Schama recreates in precise detail a nation's mental state. He tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great!
- By Noe on 12-05-24
By: Simon Schama
-
Playworld
- A Novel
- By: Adam Ross
- Narrated by: Adam Ross
- Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep—along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach—he's teetering on the edge of collapse. Then comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Is it over yet?
- By Brady9876543 on 01-14-25
By: Adam Ross
-
Smoke and Ashes
- Opium's Hidden Histories
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Ranjit Madgavkar
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting Research, Terrible Reading
- By Paula de la Cruz on 03-09-24
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
The Burning Earth
- A History
- By: Sunil Amrith
- Narrated by: Esh Alladi
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth. Amrith relates in gorgeous prose, and on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic in which humanity might find the collective wisdom to save itself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Environmental grieving
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-25
By: Sunil Amrith
-
The Moving Target
- A Lew Archer Novel
- By: Ross Macdonald
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 680
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 601
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 598
As private eye Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you can get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, misdirected love, and family hatred into an explosive crime novel.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Unbearable
- By Bodiccea on 07-07-18
By: Ross Macdonald
-
Remembering Peasants
- A Personal History of a Vanished World
- By: Patrick Joyce
- Narrated by: Philip Bird
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 6
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6
“What the skeleton is to anatomy, the peasant is to history, its essential hidden support.” For over the past century and a half, and still more rapidly in the last seventy years, the world has become increasingly urban, and the peasant way of life—the dominant way of life for humanity since agriculture began well over 6,000 years ago—is disappearing. In this new history of peasantry, social historian Patrick Joyce aims to tell the story of this lost world and its people, and how we can commemorate their way of life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Respect & remembrance, thoughtfully told
- By Phyllis Hill on 06-03-24
By: Patrick Joyce
-
Philosopher of the Heart
- The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard
- By: Clare Carlisle
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence - how to be a human being in the world? - while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Fatally flawed
- By Citizen M on 02-26-23
By: Clare Carlisle
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Goethe
- Life as a Work of Art
- By: Rüdiger Safranksi, David Dollenmayer - translator
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is the first definitive biography in a generation to tell the larger-than-life story of the writer considered to be the Shakespeare of German literature. Drawing upon the trove of letters, diaries, and notebooks Goethe left behind, as well as correspondence and criticism from Goethe's contemporaries, Safranski weaves a rich tale of Europe in the throes of revolution and of the man whose ideas heralded a new era.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Academic
- By tpritch on 07-06-19
By: Rüdiger Safranksi, and others
-
Confessions
- A Life of Failed Promises
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: A. N. Wilson
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14
Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street—as a prolific writer. The audiobook begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self—whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Atomic bomb and other gems
- By Charles on 11-27-23
By: A. N. Wilson
-
Goethe: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Six Full-Cast Dramatisations Including Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther and More
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Simon Callow, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jack Farthing, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most famous and celebrated dramas of all time.
-
Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Auriol Smith, Gunnar Cauthery, Stephen Critchlow, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 662
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 579
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 573
Faust is one of the pillars of Western literature. This classic drama presents the story of the scholar Faust, tempted into a contract with the Devil in return for a life of sensuality and power. Enjoyment rules, until Faust’s emotions are stirred by a meeting with Gretchen, and the tragic outcome brings Part 1 to an end. Part 2, written much later in Goethe’s life, places his eponymous hero in a variety of unexpected circumstances, causing him to reflect on humanity and its attitudes to life and death.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Kyle on 12-04-11
-
Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Tim Habeger
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 210
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 181
Goethe's masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Where's Part II???
- By Joe Reader on 05-10-14
-
Faust: Parts I & II
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Jack Wynters
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement, to which Goethe was an early and major contributor. Part I of the work outlines a pact Faust makes with the devil, Mephistopheles, and encompasses the tragedy of Gretchen, whom Faust seduces.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Grating Performance
- By Jo on 01-12-25
-
Goethe
- Life as a Work of Art
- By: Rüdiger Safranksi, David Dollenmayer - translator
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is the first definitive biography in a generation to tell the larger-than-life story of the writer considered to be the Shakespeare of German literature. Drawing upon the trove of letters, diaries, and notebooks Goethe left behind, as well as correspondence and criticism from Goethe's contemporaries, Safranski weaves a rich tale of Europe in the throes of revolution and of the man whose ideas heralded a new era.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Academic
- By tpritch on 07-06-19
By: Rüdiger Safranksi, and others
-
Confessions
- A Life of Failed Promises
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: A. N. Wilson
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14
Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street—as a prolific writer. The audiobook begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self—whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Atomic bomb and other gems
- By Charles on 11-27-23
By: A. N. Wilson
-
Goethe: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Six Full-Cast Dramatisations Including Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther and More
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Simon Callow, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jack Farthing, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most famous and celebrated dramas of all time.
-
Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Auriol Smith, Gunnar Cauthery, Stephen Critchlow, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 662
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 579
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 573
Faust is one of the pillars of Western literature. This classic drama presents the story of the scholar Faust, tempted into a contract with the Devil in return for a life of sensuality and power. Enjoyment rules, until Faust’s emotions are stirred by a meeting with Gretchen, and the tragic outcome brings Part 1 to an end. Part 2, written much later in Goethe’s life, places his eponymous hero in a variety of unexpected circumstances, causing him to reflect on humanity and its attitudes to life and death.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Kyle on 12-04-11
-
Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Tim Habeger
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 210
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 181
Goethe's masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Where's Part II???
- By Joe Reader on 05-10-14
-
Faust: Parts I & II
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Jack Wynters
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement, to which Goethe was an early and major contributor. Part I of the work outlines a pact Faust makes with the devil, Mephistopheles, and encompasses the tragedy of Gretchen, whom Faust seduces.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Grating Performance
- By Jo on 01-12-25
-
Victoria
- A Life
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 192
The longest reigning British monarch and female sovereign in history, Queen Victoria was a figure of profound paradox who has mystified historians for over a century. Now in this magisterial biography, A.N. Wilson rebukes the conventional wisdom about her life - that she was merely a "funny little woman in a bonnet" who did next to nothing - to show she was in fact intensely involved in state affairs despite a public façade of inaction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book has old and new info
- By Dr. A. on 10-29-14
By: A. N. Wilson
-
The Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Collection: Faust & Elective Affinities
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Adriel Brandt
- Length: 20 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 2
Faust is a tragic play in two parts that reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant but disillusioned scholar who makes a deal with the devil. it is widely considered to be Goethe's masterpiece and the greatest work of German literature. The novel Elective Affinities is the story of Eduard and Charlotte, an aristocratic couple enjoying an idyllic but rather dull life on their rural estate. They invite the Captain, Eduard's childhood friend, and Ottilie, the orphaned niece of Charlotte, to live with them, with tragic results.
-
Beethoven
- Anguish and Triumph
- By: Jan Swafford
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 39 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 190
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 186
Jan Swafford's biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
- By DMgraphicGlass on 01-20-15
By: Jan Swafford
-
The Sorrows of Young Werther
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 137
Werther, a sensitive young artist, finds himself in Wahlheim, a quiet, attractive village in Germany where he seeks solace from the turmoils of love. It is a young spring, and he hopes that arcadian solitude will prove a genial balm to his mind. But his romantic tendency rules otherwise, and he falls in love with Charlotte - Lotte - even though he knows she is affianced to another.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great performance for a classical story.
- By Brandon Shaw on 09-15-17
-
Faust: Parts 1 & 2
- By: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
- Narrated by: Adriel Brandt
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7
Faust is a tragic play in two parts that reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant but disillusioned scholar who makes a deal with the devil. Faust is considered by many to be Goethe's masterpiece and the greatest work of German literature. Part I sets out Faust’s despair, his pact with Mephistopheles, and his love for Gretchen. Part II deals with Faust’s life at court, the wooing and winning of Helen of Troy, and his purification and redemption.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
German Classic
- By J. E. Baker on 02-06-24
-
Faust: Parts I & II
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 99
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 97
Faust has long been considered one of the most important works of European literature ever published. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe began writing Faust in the 1770s while still a young man, spending most of his adult life on the project. Faust was finally finished almost 50 years later, near the end of his life. Faust is a philosophical drama full of humor, satire, and tragedy. The demon Mephistopheles makes a bet with God that he can lure Faust from the path of good.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful Performance
- By David Sanders on 03-15-18
-
Goethe
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels, and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyzes some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion, and tragedy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow I knew he was good but idk he was that Goethe
- By Anonymous User on 09-27-24
-
Philosopher of the Heart
- The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard
- By: Clare Carlisle
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence - how to be a human being in the world? - while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Fatally flawed
- By Citizen M on 02-26-23
By: Clare Carlisle
-
The Mystery of Charles Dickens
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Filled with the twists, pathos, and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist’s extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer’s death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens’ creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens’ fiction drew from his life - a fact he acknowledged.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
One thesis, repeated
- By Marina on 01-31-21
By: A. N. Wilson
-
Italian Journey
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Goethe was probably the greatest universal genius who ever lived. Although known primarily as a poet, playright, and novelist, he was also known for his work in anatomy, botany, color, art criticism, and jurisprudence. Many people are deterred from attempting to read anything by Goethe because of his extremely penetrating intelligence and dense prose. But his travel diary, Italian Journey, is by far easier to digest than anything else by him.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent unabridged version
- By Lena S. on 10-15-16
-
Prince Albert
- The Man Who Saved the Monarchy
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent Bio!
- By Nancy on 04-24-24
By: A. N. Wilson
-
The Brothers Grimm
- A Biography
- By: Ann Schmiesing
- Narrated by: Eve Matheson
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Drawing on deep archival research and decades of scholarship, Ann Schmiesing tells the affecting story of how the Grimms’ ambitious projects gave the brothers a sense of self-preservation through the atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars and a series of personal losses.
By: Ann Schmiesing
What listeners say about Goethe
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brandon Anthony
- 11-29-24
More Goethe
Rate everything by or about Goethe 5 stars so more will be made available on Audible. This is a fine work and worthwhile, but there are better starting places.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful