Carl Hoffmann (publisher)

Carl Hoffmann (born June 2, 1802 in Bernburg , † December 29, 1883 in Stuttgart ) was a German publisher , printer, and bookseller.

Life

family

Carl Hoffmann was the sixth child of Friedrich Hoffmann (1771–1833), official a. Senior surgeon in Bernburg and his wife Johanna (1775–1827), daughter of the bridge administrator König, born in Ballenstedt and Bernburg. He had fourteen other siblings, six of whom died early, of his other siblings are known:

• Friedrich August Hoffmann (1796–1874), court preacher and rector of the city school in Ballenstedt, theol. Writer;
• Ludwig Gottfried Hoffmann (1798–1850), Dr. med., district physician in Ballenstedt;
• Franz Hoffmann (1814–1882), bookseller, youth a. Popular writer, editor of the magazine Jugendfreund ;
• Carolina Hoffmann, married to Julius Weise (1804–1882), bookseller and publisher in Stuttgart, owner of Julius Weise's Hofbuchhandlung ;
• Maria Hoffmann, married to Carl August Schmidt (1816–1881), took over the Hoffmanns series of publications for young people in 1843 and founded the Schmidt and Spring publishing house in Stuttgart.

His nephews were:

• Anton Hoffmann (1856–1915), publisher;
• Franz Hoffmann (1850 – approx. 1920), publisher;
• Ernst Hoff ( 1872–1932 ), association manager

His great-nephew was:

• Herbert Hoffmann (1891–1950), publisher;

His great-great-nephew was:

• Kurt Hoffmann ( * 1923), owner of the Julius Hoffmann publishing house.

Carl Hoffmann married Elisabeth (1801–64) in Stuttgart in 1827, daughter of pastor Johann Nikolaus Hoff in Mannheim and his wife Christine Laubinger. Together they had three sons and three daughters, of which are known:

• Julius Hoffmann (1833–1904), bookseller and publisher, acquired the K. Thienemann publishing house in 1862 and sold it in 1885 to his cousins ​​Anton and Franz Hoffmann; He founded the Julius Hoffmann publishing house and since 1873 has been the director of the C. Hoffmann publishing house .

His grandchildren were:

• Julius Hoffmann (1864–1932), publisher;
• Robert Hoffmann (1868–1935), painter.

Career

At the age of fourteen, Carl Hoffmann was apprenticed to Carl Cnobloch's bookstore in Leipzig in 1816 , whereupon he worked as an assistant in Friedrich Ludwig Herbig's (1781–1839) shop in Leipzig and then in 1821 a position at Löffler'schen Bookstore in Mannheim . Later he worked as an assistant in the Franckh'sche bookstore in Stuttgart, in which a cheap edition of Walter Scott's novels was published at the time and which was a huge success.

In 1826 he bought the JD Sattler'sche bookstore and lending library in Stuttgart and went into business for himself. He expanded his business and quickly made it the first assortment store in Stuttgart. He also acquired parts of Friedrich Franckh (1795–1865), intensified his lending library and reading circle, and soon began to publish books himself. He was the first to have the books in bound copies in stock. He expanded his Stuttgart journal reading circle to include a reading circle for good and interesting works in German, French and English.

In 1829 he took his future brother-in-law Julius Weise into the company. In 1833 he left the bookstore to him and devoted himself to the publishing house, the basis of which was probably the novel library (translations) of his former boss Friedrich Franckh, which he had acquired in 1827. Some of the great popular works that appeared were particularly successful, for example Karl von Rotteck's World History , Vollrath Hoffmann's The Earth and its Inhabitants and Lorenz Oken's Natural History . Due to the successful sale of Lorenz Okens Atlas, Carl Hoffmann set up his own lithography , lithography and coloring company (the first in Stuttgart).

The lending library founded in 1826 was also ceded by Hoffmann to Gustav Weise in 1833 and continued under the company Gustav Weises Lending Library.

Carl Hoffmann now dedicated himself exclusively to publishing activities and he built a house on Stuttgart's Feuersee, in the middle of which is the Johanneskirche .

With the book of the world (1842–1871), which appeared in weekly deliveries , he created the first instructive illustrated entertainment paper, which achieved a circulation of up to 23,000, a spectacular success at the time that had a pioneering effect on popular scientific literature.

He also founded one of the first fashion and needlework magazines. Other publishing areas were astronomy ( Die Wunder des Himmels by Joseph Johann von Littrow ), horticulture ( Schmidlin's garden books by Eduard Schmidlin ), geography such as Heinrich Berghaus Allgemeine Landes- und Völkerkunde (6 volumes), a number of Greek and Roman classics in translations, Narrator and novel libraries as well as youth publications (main author: his brother Franz Hoffmann, who also edited the magazine Jugendfreund ). Charles Dickens , 25 volumes, appeared in the library of classic foreign novels ; Edward Bulwer-Lytton , 22 volumes; James Fenimore Cooper , 30 volumes; Frederick Marryat , 20 volumes and Walter Scott , 25 volumes. Famous works such as Gustav Adolf Breymann's Construction Theory and the Complete Textbook of the Entire Architecture by Ludwig Friedrich Wolfram (1781–1846) can be found in the field of architecture .

In 1843 he sold the part for youth publications of the publishing house, which he had built up together with his brother Franz Hoffmann, to his brother-in-law Carl August Schmidt, who opened the Schmidt & Spring company in Stuttgart together with Louis Spring.

In 1846 Carl Hoffmann acquired the Walther publishing house in Stuttgart (a branch of the Dresden company of the same name) to expand his business and merged it with his company.

In 1851 Carl Hoffmann sold the picture book department to Rudolph Chelius (1816–1885) in Stuttgart. In the same year he opened the subsidiary Krais & Hoffmann with his son-in-law Friedrich Aaron Krais (1821–1907) , which existed until 1867.

Hoffmann has been very energetic in the efforts to improve the bookselling goods and accounting traffic, so he gave exemplary suggestions for optimizing the dispatch routes. Together with Karl Messow he founded the Süddeutsche Buchhandlerzeitung and with Friedrich Liesching (1813–1845) and Heinrich Erhard (1796–1873), owner of the Stuttgart JB Metzler'sche Buchhandlung (today: JB Metzler Verlag), in 1842 the Stuttgart booksellers association and worked for Creation of the Süddeutscher Buchhändlerverein played a key role. From 1864–1867 he was also a member of the board of directors of the booksellers' association in Leipzig.

In 1864 Hoffmann acquired the royal Bad Teinach on the edge of the Black Forest . He set up this spa from scratch and turned it into one of the most popular bathing resorts in southern Germany at the time.

In 1873 Carl Hoffmann gave his son Julius Hoffmann, owner of the K. Thienemanns Verlag company in Stuttgart, which had existed since 1849 , power of attorney for Hoffmann's publishing house. He himself kept the print shop and wrote several botanical books in the following years. Eight book trade companies can be traced back to him.

He was in the Stuttgart city council from 1853-1865 and during this time the chairman of the Stuttgart Beautification Association .

Works (selection)

• Plant atlas based on the Linnaeus system , Stuttgart 1881.
• Botanical Picture Atlas , Stuttgart 1883.
• Textbook of practical botany in words and pictures , Stuttgart 1886.

Web links

• Rudolf Schmidt: Overview table of the branched off companies from the bookstore founded by Carl Hoffmann in Stuttgart in 1826. (PNG) In: German booksellers. German book printer. Volume 3 . Contumax GmbH & Co. KG. 1905. Retrieved February 7, 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ^ German biography: Hoffmann, Carl - German biography. Retrieved March 12, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Zeno: Hoffmann, Carl. Retrieved March 13, 2018 . 
3. ^ Eduard Mörike: Works and Letters, p. 281 . Klett, 1900, ISBN 978-3-608-33180-6 ( google.de [accessed on March 13, 2018]).