Carl Berendt Lorck

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Carl Berendt Lorck
Carl Berendt Lorck: The future of the book trade in Leipzig , Leipzig 1884

Carl Berendt Lorck (born August 29, 1814 in Copenhagen ; † October 25, 1905 in Leipzig ) was a Danish-German bookseller , typographer and publisher . He became known as a publisher of Scandinavian literature in Germany and the story of Frederick the Great by Franz Kugler , as a co-founder of the Leipziger Illustrirten Zeitung , as an author and resurrected woodcut in Germany. He was also the founder of the German Book Printers Association and the Central Association for the Entire Book Industry with the German Book Industry Museum .

life and work

family

Carl Berendt Lorck was born in Copenhagen in 1814 as the son of the Danish naval officer Lorenz Lorck (1781–1820) and his wife Marianne Elisabeth Lorck (1785–1822), née Bech. His paternal grandfather was the merchant and Danish consul Lorenz Hansen Lorck (1743–1805) in Memel , and his mother's side was the Copenhagen timber merchant Jörgen Bech. In 1842 he married the hotelier's daughter Johanna Henriette Ida Plätzer in Leipzig, with whom he had a daughter (Therese Henriette, 1843–1920) and two sons (Lorenz, 1846–1847 and Paul Eduard Lorenz, 1849–1920). Paul Eduard Lorenz was an accountant and emigrated to Batavia , where he also died. Therese Henriette lived unmarried in Leipzig.

Early years and education in Copenhagen

Carl Berendt Lorck was already eight years old orphan and grew up with his grandmother on mother's side. His uncle Lauritz Nicolai Hvidt , husband of Wilhelmine Therese Lorck, the father's sister, and director of the Danish National Bank in Copenhagen, envisaged an academic career for him. Until 1833 he attended the Borgerdydskolen i København and then completed the Examen artium , which included the university entrance examination . The following year he took the exams in philosophy. et philolog. min. , which represented a kind of completion of the basic studies. He passed both exams at the University of Copenhagen with excellent grades.

Out of private passion, Lorck occupied himself with collecting and reading books, first in his grandfather's library stored with his uncle and later through books that he himself bought. He developed a particular interest in historical works and travelogues in German, which he taught himself by reading. Shaped by this passion, Lorck decided to do an apprenticeship as a printer and then to become a bookseller . In 1834 he began his training as a typesetter at Bianco Luno , the most famous book printer in Copenhagen at the time. The training ended in 1836 and Lorck decided to go to Germany for further training. In Braunschweig he met the editor of the journal for book printing, Johann Heinrich Meyer , who had a strong influence on his later life. On his advice and recommendation, he moved to Leipzig and worked there in the Breitkopf & Härtelschen Buchdruckerei , which, under Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf's management, was one of the most famous printing companies in the city.

Employee and partner in the J. J. Weber publishing house

In Leipzig Lorck made the acquaintance of the publisher Johann Jakob Weber , whose publishing house J. J. Weber had only been founded in 1834, but which already had a very good reputation due to the magazine Das Pfennig-Magazin that he edited and some well-illustrated book editions. Carl Berendt Lorck began an internship with him in 1836 . In August 1837 Weber offered him a partnership, for which 10,000 Reichstaler had to be raised. Lorck accepted this offer, but at his request it was not made public for the time being.

Hans Christian Andersen (1869)

Weber gave Lorck a series of publishing articles, which he should continue and complete in his own publishing house. In addition, Lorck devoted himself increasingly to taking over and translating works from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish literature. Above all, the authorized publication of the collected works of Hans Christian Andersen in 38 volumes should be mentioned here, which was known in Germany and published in several editions. There were also works by Henrik Hertz , Christian Winther , Johan Ludvig Runeberg , Erik Johan Stagnelius , Esaias Tegnér , Bernhard von Beskow (1796–1868), Carl Bernhard and the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted , whose spirit in nature is in the second edition by Lorck was relocated and caused a stir. Also were important Thorvald Nicolai Thiele Thorvaldsen's life in three volumes, and the memories of Adam Oehlenschläger in authorized edition. Various historical works from Denmark and Sweden as well as Dutch and Belgian literature were published by Lorck and thus made known in Germany. Lorck also founded the magazine Der Nordische Telegraph as a “spiritual link between Germany and its related countries”, although it was not very successful.

With Lorck's house library , Carl Berendt Lorck built a series of one-volume works that were printed in an octave format and each supplemented with a high-quality steel engraving. Initially it was exclusively about history books, later books on geography and ethnology were added. The program consisted of original publications and was supplemented by travel books published abroad and was very successful until new legislation granted foreign authors and translators more rights and they approached Lorck with demands that could not be met. Lorck ended the series with the 83rd volume. A second major work by Lorck was Lorck's railway books , in which the increase in the fee claims to twice as much led to the termination.

First edition of the Illustrirten Zeitung on July 1, 1843

The further publishing of Weber and Lorck up to 1845 was mainly characterized by a number of bibliographical editions, but also by many very richly illustrated works from the field of historical literature. During this time, for example, Die Kaiserchronik appeared with 90 historical pictures from the Versailles Gallery in steel-engraved outlines, the story of the French Revolution by François-Auguste Mignet with steel engravings by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux , The soldiers of the French Republic and the Empire with 50 colored Illustrations by Hippolyte Bellangé , The Danube, its residents, cities, castles and palaces by Oskar Ludwig Bernhard Wolff with 80 steel engravings and 80 woodcuts by William Henry Bartlett , The Little Sorrows of Human Life with 200 original drawings by Grandville , a picture gallery of the works of Charles Dickens and especially Paul M. Laurent's story of the Emperor Napoleon , illustrated with 450 vignettes by Horace Vernet . The most famous work of this time, however, was Franz Kugler's story of Frederick the Great with 400 illustrations by Adolph Menzel . This work was of historical and art historical interest as well as artistically unique and significant as a book printing work.

In 1843 the Illustrirte Zeitung was founded by Weber and Lorck . As with the illustrated books, Lorck was primarily responsible for the technical work involved in the production and mediation between the artists and the wood cutters in Berlin, Leipzig and Paris. Accordingly, he spent a lot of time in the FA Brockhaus publishing house used at the time .

Own publishing house and printer

Adolf Glaßbrenner

In 1845, Carl Berendt Lorck became a citizen of the Kingdom of Saxony and separated from Weber. Weber assigned parts of his publishing program to him, and on this basis Lorck began to realize his own publishing ideas with his own publishing house. The following year his publishing house published Neue Reinecke Fuchs by the political satirist Adolf Glaßbrenner , who, at the endeavor of the Prussian government, was to be confiscated before its publication. Lorck had already found out about this in advance and accelerated the delivery of the book to the booksellers, while the confiscation itself was delayed. When this was supposed to be carried out, only a few books were found in the publishing house and in the subsequent search of the commission agents .

On July 1, 1856, Lorck took over the Fr. Nies'sche book printing and type foundry in Leipzig. Friedrich Nies was the first printer who printed with hieroglyphic types and had made a name for himself through this. His main work was The old Egypt by Moritz Gotthilf Schwartze in a quarto format "which was as thick as it was high". With the purchase, Lorck had taken on the very difficult task of completely reorganizing the business and completing it in accordance with the technical and scientific demands of the time, which he quickly succeeded in, so that after a short time he was able to take on important orders for publishers in Execute England, France, Italy, Russia and Scandinavia. In 1859 he sold the Scandinavian range business to Alphons Dürr as the last remnant of his former publishing house .

From 1867 onwards, the journal Europa - Chronik der Bildungswelt, founded by August Lewald in Stuttgart in 1835 and later passed into the possession of Gustav Kühne , was also published by Carl Berendt Lorck. Gustav Kühne himself was a very good writer and critic, but as a publisher he was not very successful, which led to a sharp drop in the number of subscribers. In 1857 Lorck took over the paper, the editing of which remained in Dresden, and managed to increase the circulation again to 1,200 subscribers. In 1867 Lorck sold his publishing house and thus also the magazine Europa to Ernst Keil , whose magazine Die Gartenlaube had been the most successful illustrated magazine in Germany since 1853. In 1868 the printing company was transferred to Wilhelm Eduard Drugulin , who himself learned in the Niesschen book printing company, but had not pursued the typographic career any further.

It was not until 1877 that Carl Berendt Lorck became active again with a company and took over the Leipzig art depot from Gustav Seitz . Together with him, he built it up into a prosperous business with plastic art and painting, but in 1880 he left this to Carl Julius Oehlmann, who continued to run it.

Efforts to publish and book production

After selling his publishing house and printing company, Lorck concentrated primarily on optimizing the publishing industry and book production. In 1868 he founded the journal Annalen der Typographie, central organ for the technical and material interests of the press, and launched the first issue on July 1, 1869. Shortly after the publication, it became known that the book printers wanted to found their own association to strengthen their interests - a topic that Lorck processed in his magazine under the title A general German book printer association with the motto res severa verum gaudium and in it specific suggestions for proposed the organization of such an association. The article met with general approval and in the same year led to the establishment of the German Book Printers Association in Leipzig. Lorck was asked to take over the management of the association, his annals became the association's journal. He accepted the offer and organized the association by drawing up the statutes and guidelines, making use of his own practical experience as a printer. In 1875, however, he resigned from the club, as internal disputes developed within the club. In 1877 he stopped work on his annals and let the magazine run out.

As early as 1873 Lorck was delegated to the World Exhibition in Vienna as a juror for the book trade and worked together with Georges Masson (1839–1900) from Paris and Moritz Gerold (1815–1884) from Vienna as a reporter for the book trade. His official report was published as a special print under the title Die graphischen Künste at the exhibition in Vienna by Vieweg Verlag in Braunschweig. On the occasion of the Saxon-Thuringian trade exhibition in 1879, Lorck wrote Die Druckkunst und die Buchhandel in Leipzig through four centuries and published this report with the JJ Weber publishing house, followed in the same year by the report on the exhibition entitled Der Buchhandel und die Graphischen Künste at the arts and crafts exhibition in Leipzig in 1879.

In 1883, the history of the Leipzig Booksellers Association was published during the first 50 years of its existence, 1833-82 , and shortly thereafter in the same year the main work Lorck's handbook of the history of book printing in two volumes. In these books he described the developments in book production and illustration, starting with the handwritten copies in medieval monasteries to the modern printing machines of his time. At the same time he criticized the loss of quality due to mass production, in which book art no longer played a role.

With Die Zukunft des Buchhandels in Leipzig in 1884 he presented perspectives for the development of book production in his hometown. The most important part of the content is his demands for an improvement in the art of printing. These were the establishment of a book trade museum and a higher graphic training institute (academy), the careful maintenance of the exhibition system and the establishment of a new association for the book trade. In response to this memorandum , the Saxon government decided to discuss Lorck's proposals and take them into account in the upcoming budget planning. In 1885 the extensive collection of historical prints from Heinrich Klemm was bought for 400,000 marks and made the basis of the German Book Trade Museum in the form of the Royal Saxon Bibliographical Collection . At the same time, the preparatory work for the establishment of the central association for the entire book trade , to which the museum was affiliated, took place, and Lorck was appointed secretary. In the following years Lorck successfully organized various exhibitions in the museum.

For Lorck's 90th birthday, the city of Leipzig decided to name a street in his honor, Lorckstraße . A year later, on October 25, 1905, Carl Berendt Lorck died in Leipzig. The street in Reudnitz carried the name Lorcks until 1945 and was then renamed Kurt-Günther-Straße after the journalist and resistance fighter against National Socialism , Kurt Günther .

Fonts

  • The production of printing works, Lorck (later JJ Weber), Leipzig, 4 editions 1868 to 1893
  • The graphic arts at the exhibition in Vienna, Fr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig 1874
  • The art of printing and the book trade in Leipzig through four centuries, JJ Weber, Leipzig, 4 editions 1879 to 1893.
  • History of the Association of Booksellers in Leipzig during the first 50 years of its existence 1833-82, Association of German Booksellers, Leipzig 1883
  • Handbook of the history of book printing, JJ Weber, Leipzig 1883.
  • The future of the book trade in Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, Breitkopf & Härtel Leipzig 1884
  • The German Book Trade Museum in Leipzig Teubner, Leipzig 1886
  • The annual book trade exhibition in the German Booksellers' House in Leipzig, Ramm and Seemann, Leipzig 1890 and 1891
  • Practical advice on how to dress books at exhibitions, Leipzig 1891

literature

  • Rudolf Schmidt: German bookseller. German book printer. Contributions to a company history of the German book industry. Verlag der Buchdruckerei Franz Weber (later: Eberswalde: Verlag von Rudolf Schmidt), Berlin 1902–1908; Page 634–642. ( Full text )
  • Bettina Rüdiger: Carl Berendt Lorck - a Dane in Leipzig. In: Leipzig yearbook on book history . Volume 14, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 317–323.
  • Hans Lülfing :  Lorck, Carl Berendt. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 165 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Andreas Lorck Schierning: The Chronicle of the Lorck Family. Fate and genealogy of a Flensburg merchant family from 4 centuries . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1949
  • Helma Schaefer: The effectiveness and importance of Carl Berend Lorck for the book trade. In: Contributions to the history of the book industry . Volume 6. Leipzig 1975, pp. 91-138
  • Carl Berendt Lorck . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 10 : Laale – Løvenørn . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1896, p. 369 (Danish, runeberg.org ).

Web links

Wikisource: Carl Berendt Lorck  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cover sheet taken from the reprint of the Deutsche Bücherei, Leipzig 1977
  2. ↑ a b c quoted from Schmidt 1908
  3. ↑ projects.exeter.ac.uk
  4. ↑ projects.exeter.ac.uk
  5. ↑ a b zeno.org
  6. ↑ Carl Berendt Lorck . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 10 : Laale – Løvenørn . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1896, p. 369 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  7. ↑ projects.exeter.ac.uk
  8. ^ To Leipzig-Lexikon
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on April 29, 2007 .
personal data
SURNAME Lorck, Carl Berendt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish-German bookseller and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1905
Place of death near Leipzig