Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In a retelling of the Faust legend, readers follow the story of young Johann Georg Gerlach as he travels throughout the German empire in the late 15th century and eventually becomes the great Doctor Johann Georg Faustus, magician and scholar, but a mystery surrounding Faustus's birth and his first mentor's secret society eventually comes back to haunt him.

The scholar Faust is tempted into contract with the Devil in return for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.