Beschreibung:

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von IMPORTANT SERIES OF THIRTY-NINE LETTERS SIGNED (TWO ENTIRELY AUTOGRAPH), AND TWO LETTERS BY HIS SON JULIUS AUGUST VON GOETHE, TO JOSEPH SEBASTIAN GRÜNER, MAINLY ABOUT MINERALOGY, PALEONTOLOGY AND LITERATURE, AND INCLUDING, IN HIS FINAL LETTER, WRITTEN A WEEK BEFORE HIS DEATH, A SUMMARY OF HIS PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Goethe discusses his travels and excavations with Grüner in Bohemia in search of mineralogical deposits, making arrangements for the transport of rocks and samples, his travel and lodging with his secretary and friends in Eger (now Cheb), referring to his famous and most extensive work Zur Farbenlehre (1810), sending him in 1821 a copy of the recently published Wilhelm Meisters Wunderjahre ("...behalten das Buch für sich..."), the two volumes of the Italienische Reise, an engraving of his portrait by George Dawe (1819), books of poetry by Lenz and Anton Firnstein and various articles on mineralogy, lists of rocks and minerals (one apparently unpublished), the letters written out mainly by a single secretary, two by Goethe himself, and a few by other hands, signed "J.W. v Goethe", "Goethe" etc., (some letters & additional postscripts signed "G"), and some with longer autograph salutations; one of the two letters by Goethe's son reports poignantly on a near fatal illness of his father's ('...mein armer Vater wurde am 17. d. M. plötzlich von einer Entzündung des Herzbeutels...ergriffen, welche ihn im Verlauf der Woche an den Rand des Grabes stellte...') 42 letters, two autograph, 38 signed by Goethe, 84 pages, mainly 4to, letters nos. 14 & 15 on paper bearing the watermarked portrait of "Carl August Grosherzog von Sachsen-Weimar u Eisenach", 25 original envelopes (one autograph), a few additional inserted notes etc (c. 70 items in all), integral address panels, annotated, signed and numbered by the recipient (1-42), letter no.12 appended to a copy of an enquiry from the chemist Friedem Goebel, letter no.25 in a later copy (c.1840), together with a letter by Goethe's secretary J.C.W. Stadelmann, enclosing a box of rock samples, postmarks and red seals, discreetly numbered in pencil, small library stamps (cancelled) to each letter and envelope, the letters sent from Jena, Weimar, Karlsbad and Marienbad, 9 July 1820 to 15 March 1832, some splitting at folds, mainly at the margins, signature clipped from letter no.2, seal-tear repaired on letter no. 34