First published in 1905-1908, this exhaustive work was immediately accepted as the standard life of Goethe, and remains the most thorough multi-volume biography available. A three-volume life of Goethe, with full critical estimates designed for the student rather than for the general reader. The author devoted a life-time to the work and based it upon material made accessible by the opening of the Goethe archives and by recent philological investigation. ..".is probably the most complete and authoritative life of Goethe." -- Review of Reviews This title is cited and recommended by Books for College Libraries and the Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard College. At the time of original publication, William A. Cooper was Assistant Professor of German at Stanford University.