Beschreibung:

GOETHE, Ottilie von (1796-1872). Collection of 51 autograph letters, mainly signed ('Ottilie von Goethe, Ottilie, Ihre alte Freundin Ottilie'), addressed to Samuel Naylor, Weimar, later Frankfurt, Leipzig and Vienna, 16/17 October 1830 to 23 April 1848, 195 pages, mostly 4to, some 8vo , most with address panels and seals (many in poor condition, with tears in folds and damage from seals, but all perfectly legible); 15 mostly brief undated autograph notes, 8vo and 12mo; two poems, 4pp 4to and an incomplete essay "Rahel", 4pp 4to. A most remarkable series of often long and passionate letters from Ottilie, Goethe's daughter-in-law, who lived in his house in Weimar, to a young English student, who for a short time in 1830 and 1831 was part of Goethe's circle. Samuel Naylor, born in 1809, went as a student to Jena in 1830 where he met Professor Friedrich Voigt, who on October 7th gave him a letter of introduction to Madame de Goethe, "I wish you to be as lucky as to see the great man himself" (included with the lot). Naylor was soon on an intimate footing with Ottilie, and fell passionately in love with her, although she was married with three children. At that time her husband August, who was travelling in Italy for six months, died suddenly in Rome in October 1830. Naylor then proposed marriage and the letters chronicle the course of the relationship. Although at that time Ottilie was still emotionally involved with two other Englishmen, Charles Sterling and Charles des Voeux, she was flattered and deeply moved by Naylor's proposal and clearly reciprocated his feelings for her. He left Weimar for London early in 1831 intending to return. However in 1832 he enrolled to study law at Queens College, Oxford, and soon after became engaged and later married an English woman. Ottilie was extremely angry and upset at this, regarding it as a betrayal of her trust and affections. She writes at length that she wants him to stop writing and break off the relationship with her, however the frequent correspondence continues until November 1833 and after that becomes more spasmodic. Naylor subsequently practised law in Maidenhead and London and the correspondence ceased entirely when with his family he moved to Wales in 1848. In 1855 his family had him declared insane and he was interned in an asylum and died in 1865. Naylor was a litterateur and a close friend of Henry Crabb Robinson. His first literary efforts were English translations of passages from Goethe's Faust published in Ottilie's journal Chaos . In 1839 he privately issued a volume of his poems, and inspired by Goethe he published a translation of Reynard the Fox from the middle high German in 1845, for which Ottilie offered to obtain the famous illustrations by Kaulbach to Goethe's version. The fifteen short notes were all clearly written during the earliest period of the relationship, probably at the end of 1830, mostly expressing great urgency and demanding to see Naylor, 'Sie müssen bemerkt haben wie tief erschüttert ich diesen Abend war, und da es mir ein Unrecht selbst gegen Sie scheint darüber zu schweigen, so frage ich ob Sie mit mir sprechen wollen ...', or 'Wollen Sie nicht kommen, ich bin schon seit einer Stunde auf ...'; and one note says that Goethe would like to see Naylor, 'Mein Schwiegervater wünscht Herrn Naylor um 1 Uhr bei sich zu sehen'. The letters are often long, of four, six or eight pages. Six of the letters were written in 1830, while Naylor and Ottilie saw each other almost daily, about 15 letters in 1831 and about 16 in 1832 and 1833. There was only one letter in 1834, two in 1836, one in 1837, 1839, 1840, two in 1842, one in 1844 and two in 1848 (the last merely to introduce the painter August Friedrich Pecht . The correspondence reflects an instant passion from the earliest letter, 'Doch wenn, wie ich manchmal glaube die fieberhafte Aufregung die Sie in mir ein anderes Wesen erblicken liess als ich wirklich bin sich gelegt hat, wenn Sie vielleicht je