Overview
About this book
Faustus exchanges his soul for magical knowledge and service, then spends the time he gains between spectacle, evasion and mounting terror. This edition preserves early modern spelling and a text whose surviving versions remain a subject of scholarship.
- First published
- 1604
- Language
- English
- Editor
- Alexander Dyce
- Copyright status
- Public domain
- Source edition
- Project Gutenberg ebook #779
English level
B2–C1 · Deep reading
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is calibrated from 12,451 sampled words across 5 chapters: sentences average 9.9 words, 10.7% exceed 24 words and 3.9% of words are nine letters or longer.
Explore the B2–C1 level →Sentence rhythm
What the prose asks
Mostly compact sentences averaging 9.9 words in the sampled text
Vocabulary
What may slow you down
3.9% of sampled words contain nine or more letters and about 31.64 marked archaic terms per thousand words; names and period vocabulary still vary by chapter
Reading rhythm
One sitting
A few long sections make advance stopping points useful. About 3 calm 30-minute sessions.
Suggested approach
Read with momentum
Read in planned sessions and keep short notes on voice, structure and recurring images
Best starting point
Begin with chapter one
The full text is ready with speech, lookup and saved progress.
CEFR-aligned Linden estimate · medium confidence · sampled full text · Calibrated 2026-09-08 · Provisional, not an exam certification.
Table of contents
5 chapters
Related author
Christopher Marlowe
An English playwright and poet whose ambitious protagonists gave early modern tragedy a new rhetorical power and scale.
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