Christian Gottlieb Schmieder

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Christian Gottlieb Schmieder (born December 20, 1750 in Stuttgart , † June 5, 1827 in Karlsruhe ) was a bookseller and one of the most famous German reprinters in the second half of the 18th century.

Life

Christian Gottlieb Schmieder was the son of Johann Jakob Schmieder, a valet of Duke Karl Eugen von Württemberg . At the age of 20 he moved to Karlsruhe, where he worked as a factor in a Karlsruhe printing company, before he married Christina Katharina Wirsum (1746–1817), the heiress of a Karlsruhe bookstore, on July 23, 1771. Cotta had founded this bookshop, which he had his son-in-law Max Wirsum manage until he died in 1750. After his marriage at the latest, Schmieder took over the Cotta'sche bookstore. Shortly afterwards Schmieder began to build up a publishing house on this basis and published his first book, which, however, was not yet a reprint.

Not only was the young publisher presumably lacking capital and a printing company, but also the situation on the book market at the time prompted Schmieder to focus on a different branch of the book trade in 1773. The disputes between the imperial book trade and the Saxon publishers, which culminated in the Electoral Saxon mandate of 1773, formed an ideal introduction for the aspiring publisher from southern Germany to earn money with reprints.

His "Collection of the Best German Prosaic Writers and Poets", which he began to print with an imperial privilege in 1774 , triggered a wave of complaints against the reprinter among the original publishers and authors, including Philipp Erasmus Reich and Georg Joachim Göschen , during his reprints were well received by the public for a much cheaper price.

After decades of unsteady business activity in his company, Schmieder ended his bookselling activity shortly after 1808 before he accepted a position as ministerial clerk. Christian Gottlieb Schmieder died on June 5, 1827 at the age of 77.

literature

  • Bernd Breitenbruch: The Karlsruhe bookseller Christian Gottlieb Schmieder and the reprint in southwest Germany in the last quarter of the 18th century. In: Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens, 9 (1969), Sp. 643–732.
  • Karl Gustav Fecht: History of the capital and residence city of Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe 1887.
  • Portmann, Simon: The reprint in the Old Kingdom: the example of the Karlsruhe reprinter Christian Gottlieb Schmieder. In: Frimmel, Johannes / Augustynowicz, Christoph: The book printer Maria Theresa: Johann Thomas Trattner (1719–1798) and his media empire, Wiesbaden 2019, pp. 115–130.

References and comments

  1. ↑ From 1756 Johann Michael Macklot ran the bookstore, whereupon he published magazines and became the leading bookseller in Karlsruhe.
  2. ↑ This was the first volume of the collection of all Baden-Durlachischen the church and school system, the life and health of the people ... related institutions and ordinances by Karl Friedrich Gerstalcher, who should still play a special role for Schmieder. See Breitenbruch: Schmieder, Sp. 651f.
  3. ↑ See Fecht: Karlsruhe, p. 316.
personal data
SURNAME Schmieder, Christian Gottlieb
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bookseller and printer
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1827
Place of death Karlsruhe