Carl Gottlob Beck

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Carl Gottlob Beck (born April 20, 1733 in Johanngeorgenstadt ; † December 20, 1802 in Nördlingen ) was a printer , bookseller and founder of the CH Beck publishing house .

Carl Gottlob Beck was the fourth child of the mountain, farrier and armorer Johann Gottfried Beck and his wife Esther Rosina nee. Voigtländer. He grew up with his three brothers and a sister in the mountain forge in Johanngeorgenstadt, but his mother died in 1741 and the father had to raise his four underage children alone for several years.

In 1746 the father married for the second time, namely the widow of the mountain messenger Dörffel. His new brother-in-law was the governing mayor, who presumably sponsored the education of the children of the mountain blacksmith family.

Karl Gottlob began an apprenticeship as a goldsmith , but soon discovered his interest in books. He left the Ore Mountains and learned the art of printing in Lutherstadt Wittenberg . He continued his education through study trips to Silesia , Berlin and the trade fair city of Leipzig .

Due to the unrest of the Seven Years' War , he left Saxony and settled in Regensburg , where his brother Carl Gotthelf worked as a businessman and gained wealth and reputation. Here in 1763 he obtained the license to operate a book printing company, publishing house and bookstore, with which he settled permanently in Nördlingen at the end of the year. In the following year he also founded a newspaper company. Through the publication of respected works in the fields of religion and education, medicine and art, contemporary and legal history, he succeeded in stimulating the intellectual life of Nördlingen and working far beyond the boundaries of the free imperial city.

On February 19, 1765, he married Johanna Luise Heydenreich, with whom he had 15 children, including Carl Heinrich Beck (1767–1834), who continued the company after his father's death in 1802 and took over from his mother in 1815. The company name of the publishing house CH Beck, which is still valid today and has been based in Munich since 1889, comes from Carl Heinrich Beck .

literature

  • Oskar Beck: Karl Gottlob Beck (1763-1802). In: Publishing catalog of the CH Beckschen publishing bookstore 1763–1913. Beck, Munich 1913. pp. 9-30.
  • Bernhard Hampp: Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin and Karl Gottlob Beck. A publicist and his publisher at the time of the Enlightenment. Eichstätt (Dipl.), 2001.
  • Hermann Keßler: The Nördlinger Beck publishing house. In: Zorn, Wolfgang: Pictures of life from the Bavarian Swabia. Volume 9. Hueber, Munich 1966, pp. 250-275.
  • Karl Friedrich PfauBeck, Carl Gottlob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 46, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1902, p. 302 f.
  • Annemarie Meiner:  Beck, Carl Gottlob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 697 ( digitized version ).