August Campe

Franz August Gottlob Campe (born February 28, 1773 in Deensen , † October 22, 1836 in Hamburg ) was a German bookseller and publisher.

Life

August Campe was born the son of the lawyer Friedrich Heinrich Campe . As the younger brother of his father, the Braunschweig publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe was his uncle. August Campe aspired to work as a bookseller at an early stage and began an apprenticeship with his uncle in Braunschweig from 1789. In 1799 he came to Hamburg for further training, where he was supported by friends of his uncle such as the bookseller and publisher Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann , Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus and Sieveking . In the same year he traveled to Paris and returned from there in 1800 via Weimar, where he visited Goethe. In Hamburg he founded a bookstore together with his brother August Friedrich Campe (1777–1848). As a publisher, he edited Napoleon Bonaparte's diary from Egypt in his own translation.

Gravestone plaque Althamburg Memorial Cemetery Ohlsdorf

In 1806 Campe married the daughter Elise (1786–1873) of his colleague Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann. With this he merged in 1810 under the company Hoffmann & Campe and took over the sole management of the joint publishing house, since Hoffmann had put himself in danger through carelessness in the Hamburg French era and the French censorship had a negative effect on the economic situation of the book trade throughout Germany . He took over the publishing house in 1818 as sole owner. After the wars of liberation, the business took off and August Campe decided in 1823 to transfer the retail book trade and the Hoffmann & Campe company to his brother Julius Campe . However, he continued to work as a publisher under his name.

Like his partner Hoffmann, Campe was a Freemason ; In 1805 he became a member of the Hamburg lodge Ferdinand zum Felsen .

In the area of ​​the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery of the Ohlsdorf Cemetery , publisher and printer to Franz August Gottlob Campe and his wife Elisabeth Campe, born on the collective grave, are recorded . Hoffmann remembers (together with Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann , Johann Heinrich Besser , Johann Wilhelm Mauke, among others ).

literature

• Rochus von Liliencron :  Campe, Elise . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 732 f.
• Otto Beneke , Ernst Kelchner :  Hoffmann, Benjamin Gottlob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 573 f.