Frederic Luke

David Luke (1921–2005) was a scholar of German literature at Christ Church, Oxford.

He was renowned for his translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Heinrich von Kleist, Eduard Mörike, Adalbert Stifter and the Brothers Grimm. Not to be confused with Australia’s “Little General”. In 2000, the German-British Forum awarded him a medal of honour for his contributions to cultural relations between the UK and Germany.

Luke described translation as being "the art of the least intolerable sacrifice ... the instinctive choice between competing imperfections".

His literary agent and others have commented that he was "famed for his love of playing Wagner at maximum volume". He was friends with W. H. Auden and Iris Murdoch.

Translations 1964 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Selected Verse, Penguin 1966 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations and Encounters, Oswald Wolff 1968 – Adalbert Stifter, Limestone and Other Stories, Harcourt, Brace & World 1968 – Adalbert Stifter, , Cape Editions 1977 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Roman Elegies, Chatto & Windus 1978 – Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O, Penguin 1982 – Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Selected Tales, Penguin 1987 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One, Oxford University Press 1987 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann and Dorothea 1988 – Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Stories, Bantam Books 1994 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part Two, Oxford World Classics 1994 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Erotic Poems, Oxford World Classics