Book trade in the 18th century
The book trade in the 18th century represented a groundbreaking period in the German-speaking book trade, as the book trade was given its present-day appearance through a number of market changes and book market-specific reforms . In addition to the two major conflicts, on the one hand between the south and north German publishers and dealers and on the other hand the conflict over the flourishing reprinting of books, there were also serious changes in the area of the audience , the authors and the literary products as well as in the representation of interests of the booksellers . Specification and commercialization were also promoted on the German book market through new payment methods and forms of trade.
Groundbreaking changes
The emergence of the bourgeois audience
In the 18th century, new genres became increasingly popular in the book trade . On the one hand, the bourgeois novel emerged as an alternative to popular travelogues and religious works. This development was due, among other things, to the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment and to a growing educated middle class. Literary products gained social attention and new authors such as Samuel Richardson and Christian Fürchtegott Gellert shaped the book market in the first half of the 18th century. An Anglophone reorientation also took place throughout the 18th century; previously it was mainly works by famous Italian and French authors who were in demand on the German market, so in the 18th century British literature was added, such as the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe . The increasing specialization of the products in terms of their craftsmanship, such as their printing and content design with, for example, copperplate engravings , were promoted by this audience development. The main language in literature also changed in the 18th century. Previously it was mainly theological and philosophical works in the language of the learned and the educated, Latin, so it was now increasingly published in German in order to reach a wider audience .
The authors' new self-image
In the 18th century, a new self-confidence developed in the writers' circles , which led them to demand a fee for their works that was previously unusual and no longer subordinate themselves to the common ideas of virtue and morality. Much more often now, they were only influenced by their minds and their own feelings in their writings. Up to the 18th century, the authors had mostly financed themselves through financial aid from wealthy, mostly aristocratic supporters of their works or other full-time occupations, the so-called dedication system . The contents of her works also changed, which were influenced by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment from now on or whose basic ideas were their content. A number of authors organized themselves into so - called self-publishers , in which they had their works printed. Furthermore, literature was increasingly discussed actively in the salons of the wealthy citizens and women appeared for the first time as noted and financially successful writers. One of the most important female authors of the 18th century was Sophie von La Roche , who at the end of the century also published a magazine for women called Pomona for Germany's Daughters . During this time, women were also discovered as readers, as the first fashion journals and so-called women's novels such as Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's The Life of the Swedish Countess von G or Maria Anna Sagar's The Mistaken Daughters and Carolina's Diary appear .
To a certain extent, the bookseller embodied the role of mediator and promoter of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. Among the most important publishers of the 18th century were the Leipzig greats such as Philipp Erasmus Reich and Johann Heinrich Zedler , Johann Friedrich Cotta , Johann Ludwig Gleditsch , Georg Joachim Göschen and the Berlin publisher, writer and particularly committed enlightener Christoph Friedrich Nicolai .
New payment methods are introduced
The 18th century is also groundbreaking for the German book trade because it was during this period that the book trade made the transition from the barter to the money economy. Before the introduction of the net trade, the various literary products were exchanged between the individual publishers and booksellers at the book fairs , which took place several times a year , according to the principle of "sheet for sheet and sheet for sheet". At the end of the 18th century, the net trade was briefly followed by the Condition trading operated with each other, which has been preserved to this day as one of the common accounting processes in the book industry. In the course of the emerging commercialization, other business processes such as subscription and prenumeration also emerged .
Conflicts
Southern Germany / Austria vs. Saxony and the fight against reprinting of books
In the 18th century, the German book market was shaped by the conflict between south German booksellers or publishers and their north German, mainly Saxon colleagues. This was also linked to competition from the book fair cities of Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig . A central figure in the Leipzig book industry was the bookseller and publisher Philipp Erasmus Reich , the so-called “Prince of the German book trade” in the 18th century. He shaped the book market by bringing about such serious changes as the introduction of net trading and the founding of the first national book dealers' association, ultimately making Leipzig the most important trade fair location for the German book industry. In 1764, after Reich had turned his back on the Frankfurt trade fair, he wrote to the Elector of Saxony and twelve other booksellers in a letter calling on him to strengthen the “security of our own ventures”. In her opinion, the existing privileges were not sufficient and outdated to secure the business and investments of the Saxon publishers. They therefore called for generally applicable publishing law legislation.
The establishment of the first national book trade organization
On May 10, 1765, the first book trading company in Germany was founded in Leipzig .
Since the reprint of their works was flourishing and the North German publishers had to accept severe financial losses, 56 publishers decided during the Easter fair in 1765 to pass a “First Basic Law of the newly established book trade company in Germany”. It was again Philipp Erasmus Reich who had proposed the establishment of this first "corporation-regulated guild on a supraregional legal basis" to his 220 fellow book dealers who were present at the book fair in a letter back in 1764. The society, which was also known as the “Leipziger Societät”, decided at its first meeting, which took place during the aforementioned Easter mass, to appoint Philipp Erasmus Reich as its first secretary. In addition to the implementation of modern capitalist production and distribution methods within the bookselling community, their goals were also to increase their political influence through the association, in order to be able to increasingly fight against repression in the future and to accelerate the transition from exchange to net trade . In the fight against reprinting, Philipp Erasmus Reich had his eye in particular on the Austrian Thomas von Trattner , who was listed in the Leipzig fair catalog in 1765 with 76 titles that were mostly reprinted and most of them reprinted by North German publishers. Even today, the conflict between Reich and Trattner is used as a representative of the reprint problems of the 18th century: “Are these two greatest, most ruthless and generous exploiters of their time, because Austria and Saxony were the areas of sharpest literary contrasts, the classic representatives of the bookseller's antagonisms in the age of Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa ... "
In addition to the actual establishment of the “Leipziger Societät”, the fact that it took place without the permission of the electorate , which can be seen as a blow to the feudal absolutism prevailing at the time, is remarkable . In this specific case, the publishers, ordinary non-aristocrats, passed a law, not the ruler as usual. However, since this association was only able to achieve little success for the booksellers, it took until 1773, in which the Electoral Saxon “mandate concerning the book trade” was published, until the legal situation of the Saxon publishers and citizens improved significantly. In addition to the appointment of a council of experts made up of nine booksellers and publishers , the content of this mandate was that the Leipzig Book Fair was banned from reprints, that extended legal protection was established for publishers and authors in Saxony and that a commission for questions relating to the book trade was set up has been. For the first time, every book printed in Saxony had a ten-year reprint protection if the publisher could prove the publishing right granted by the author and this had been registered with the Leipzig Book Commission. With this, Reich had finally managed to protect his works from illegal distribution and sale by his economic opponents, such as the reprint Trattner in Vienna, in Saxony.
See also
credentials
- ^ Mark Lehmstedt: The first book trading company in Germany . In: From the second-hand bookshop . NF 13, no. 2 , 2013, p. 57-66 .
- ^ Johann Goldfriedrich: History of the German book trade, 3rd vol. (1740-1804). Digital Library Volume 26: History of the German Book Industry, p. 2671.
literature
- Johannes Frimmel, Michael Wögerbauer (ed.): Communication and information in the 18th century. The example of the Habsburg monarchy. (= Book research. Volume 5). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-447-05918-3 .
- Johann Goldfriedrich : History of the German book trade. 3rd volume: 1740-1804. (Digital library. Volume 26: History of the German book industry).
- Paul Raabe : The bookseller in the eighteenth century in Germany. In: Giles Barber, Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): Book and book trade in Europe in the 18th century. (Wolfenbüttler writings on the history of the book industry. Volume 4). Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-7762-0201-7 , pp. 271-291.
- Hazel Rosenstrauch: Book trade manufacture and education. The reforms of the bookseller and publisher Ph. E. Reich (1717–1787). Social historical study on the development of the literary market. In: Archives for the history of the book industry. Volume 26, 1st half volume. Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-7657-1340-6 .
- Pamela Selwyn: Everyday Life in the German Book Trade. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-271-02011-3 .
- Robert L. Prager: The German book trade - its history and its organization. 2nd volume, Verlag für Sprach- und Handelswissenschaft, Berlin 1907.
- Reinhard Wittmann: History of the German book trade . CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-42104-0 .
