The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (Dover Publications)
We speak of Faustian pacts, and of selling our souls. It was Christopher Marlowe's play - first published in 1604 - that brought those idioms to popular consciousness.
It is based on the true figure of Georg of Helmstadt, a magician who went by the Latin 'Faustus' ('fortunate'), and whose history was collected in the German Faustbuch published by Johann Spies in 1587. Marlowe's tragic comedy tells of a prideful theologian turned necromancer who sells his soul to the devil to gain magical powers.
Doctor Faustus was first acted by the Lord Admiral's Men on September 30, 1594, 16 months after Marlowe was killed. The diary of Philip Henslowe, a stage impresario who owned The Rose Theatre in London, records this earliest-known performance of the play.
The fictional Dr Faustus signs a pact in blood with Lucifer, who sends the demon Mephistopheles to serve the man for 24 years. One of his first demands is for a beautiful wife, then for a book that contains the secrets of the universe.
Faced with Mephistopheles' farcical answers, Faustus begins to waver. Guided by good and evil angels, he questions whether to repent, deciding 'Never to look to heaven/ Never to name God, or to pray to him/ To burn his scriptures, slay his ministers/ And make my ministers pull his churches down'.