Charles Timothy Brooks is best known for his translations of German literature into English, gaining his reputation as an important translator upon the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, part one (1856). His vocation, however, was that of Unitarian minister, appointed by William Ellery Channing as the pastor of the Unitarian Church of Newport, Rhode Island, where he continued to preach for thirty-five years. Brooks considered himself a poet who was able to transform his poetical talents into eloquent sermons and more accurate and lyrical translations of German literature than others had written. Though both his sermons and his poetry were admired, their range of influence was limited, while his translations helped to stir a growing interest in German literature, theology, and philosophy in a rapidly expanding American intellectual culture. Brooks's translations of Faust and Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Titan (1862), in particular, introduced Americans to a German literary...