A metrical version of it into English was licensed byAylmer, Bishop of London , before the end of the year. In 1588 there was a rimed version of it into German, also a translation into low German, and a new edition of the original with some slight changes. In 1689 there appeared a version of the first German Faust book into, French, byVictor Palma Cayet . The English prose version was made from the second edition of the original, that of 1588, and is undated, but probably was made at once. There was a revised edition of it in 1592. In 1592 there was a Dutch translation from the second German edition. This gives the time of the carrying off of Faustus by the devil as the night between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of October, 1538. The English version also gives 1538 as the year, and it is a date, as we have seen, consistent with trustworthy references to his actual life.Marlowe's play (' The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus ') was probably written in 1588, soon after the original story had found its way to England. He treated the legend as a poet, bringing out with all his power its central thought -- man in the pride of knowledge turning from his God.