Faust Symphony Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, "Anything having to do with Goethe is dangerous for me to handle." However, the final catalyst for the symphony came in a two-month period between August and October 1854. This period coincided with a visit to Weimar by English novelist Mary Ann (Marian) Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot. Her consort George Henry Lewes was gathering information for his biography of Goethe. During visits to Liszt's residence, the Altenburg, Lewes and Eliot had several discussions with both him and Princess Carolyne about Goethe and his place in German literature. Once Liszt began writing,
Mary Ann Radcliffe (sic) New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine appeared in 1802, a collection of fictions compiled “by Mrs Mary Anne Radclife, of Wimbledon in Surrey.” Certainly Radcliffe was living in Surrey around this time. Mary Ann Radcliffe states in her memoirs that it was her intention to publish all of her books anonymously however she was coerced by her publisher into publishing under her name to benefit by the similarities of her name with that of the more famous Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe. Her later published book, "The Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe; in Familiar Letters to her Female Friend" in 1810,