in 1887, long after goethe’s death, it was discovered that he had made a version of “faust“ which he never published but later decided to rewrite. this version is known as the “urfaust” (“ur” means “original”, i.e. the “original faust”). it was written between 1772 and 1775. he changed a lot of it and it became “faust part i“. a fragment (small part of it) was published in 1790. then he finished it in 1806, published it in 1808 and changed it for a new edition in 1829. part 2 was finished in 1831, a few months before he died, and was not published until a few months after his death.