Cover-title: ... Wiley and Putnam's library of choice reading. Goethe's autobiography. Poetry and truth from my life, from the German of Goethe, by Parke-Godwin. In two parts. Parts I-[II; III and IV] At head of cover-titles: no. LXXV, LXXVI, XCVIII and XCIX. "Books which are books."--Charles Lamb.
Each part has separate t.-p. and pagination. The mottos of the four parts in the original edition are quoted on the respective title-pages: 1st part, ; 2d part, Was man in der jugend wu̇nscht, hat man im alter der [!] fu̇lle; 3d part, Es ist dafür gesorgt, dass die baüme nicht in den himmel wachsen; 4th part, Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse.
The first part is translated by the editor; the second, by John Henry Hopkins, jr.; third, by Charles A. Dana, and fourth, by John S. Dwight. cf. Advertisement, pt. II, and editor's note, pt. IV, at end.
The translations of "Annals; or, Day and year book", "Italian journey", etc., and Goethe's dramas, projected, according to "Preface by the editor", to form part of the series, were never published. The series was brought to an end in 1848, at the dissolution of the publishers' partnership.
Preface by the editor contains this statement: "Several years since there was what purported to be a translation published in London; but this was a disgraceful imposture. Mrs. Austin speaks of it as the most flagrant piece of literary dishonesty on record, not without justice; and Mr. Carlyle refers to it much in the same spirit. It was a poor copy of a wretched French version, in which frequently twenty pages of the original are omitted at a time, and hardly a sentence is rendered with fidelity." This refers to an anonymous translation published in 2 vols., London, 1824, and reprinted in 1 vol., New York, 1824 and 1844. cf. Characteristics of Goethe. From the German of Falk, von Müller, etc., with notes ... by S. Austin, vol. II (1833) p. 129, and Carlyle's Crit. and miscell. essays, New York, 1872, vol. I, p. 178.