Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil.

N.p.: Mimeograph typescript, 1934. 27 cm; [2], 169, [1], pages, dedication leaf, and original pencil and chalk title leaf with portrait of a grinning Mephistopheles, by Michel Fingesten (Michl Finkelstein), signed in pencil, protected by glassine leaf. Dedication "für HANS ARNOLD geschreiben, Weihnachten 1934," signed in ink by Grete Scholz. Text mimeographed typescript on Crown Van Gelder. Bound in half vellum over buckram cloth-covered boards, with buckram endleaves. Title stamped in gilt letters on vellum panel of top board. Upper board somewhat bowed, but book is effectively pristine.

The successful German-Jewish banker Hans Arnold made his home in Berlin a salon for artists, musicians, and intellectuals (the structure now houses the American Academy in Berlin). As a patron of the arts, Arnhold merited this hand-made gift, dedicated for Christmas 1934, of a Goethe's Faust, one of an unspecified (but certainly tiny) number of mimeographed copies printed on Crown Van Gelder watermarked paper and accompanied by an original drawing by the notable illustrator Michel Fingesten. The gift dedication is signed by Grete Scholz (d. 1937), wife of the painter Fritz-Karl Scholz-Wetterhof (d. 1945?). (Fingesten's ex-libris for Grete Scholz is extant.) Michel Fingesten (1884-1943), was a peripatetic artist known primarily for illustrated bookplates, who produced a rich body of work in the course of his agitated life. An Italian Jew, he was held in the concentration camp at Ferramonti for three years until its liberation in 1943. He died soon after a result of wounds sustained in a car accident. This volume is an artifact of the vibrant artistic and intellectual life that flourished in Germany and Mitteleurop at the cusp of Fascist domination in the 1930s.