“Well, doctor, what do you want of me? Let us see; speak! Do I
frighten you?” Méphistophélès needs no introduction, and no one
need tell you that should you see him coming, it’s best to run
the other way. Faust stood his ground and lived to regret it…at
least in some versions of the story. Johann Georg Faust, a
graduate of Heidelberg University, lived in Germany between 1480
and 1540. He was famed for his claim to be Satan’s son-in-law.
He was famous for many other things as well, most of which were
rather unsavory. It wasn’t long before his exploits at fortune-
telling, alchemy, and magic were chronicled by an anonymous
author and immediately published as Historia, von D. Johann
Faustus in 1587. Within five years, this book was translated
into English by another anonymous writer known only as P.F.,
Gentleman. In short order, the brilliant playwright Christopher
Marlowe added his version, The Tragicall History of the Life and
Death of Doctor Faustus, and this seems to be the most widely
received of the version