dtv publishing company

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dtv Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding November 30, 1960
Seat Munich , Germany
management Barbara Laugwitz (Publishing Director; from August 1, 2020)

Stephan D. Joß (Commercial Director)

Number of employees 112
sales 62.0 million euros
Branch Book publisher
Website dtv.de

The DTV Publishing mbH & Co. KG (DTV) is a German book publisher based in Munich . It was founded in 1960 under the name Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG as a joint paperback publisher of eleven publishers. Since 1996, dtv has been increasingly publishing original and first editions and, since 2012, its own hardcover program. In 2013, the company had a turnover of 62 million euros with 112 employees, with around 500 new publications annually for around 7,000 available titles (including e-books). The name was changed from Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG to dtv Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG in June 2015.

founding

It was founded by Joseph Caspar Witsch , who was able to win over ten of his colleagues for a joint paperback series. The association initially represented a kind of rights-collecting society that was supposed to publish only the books of the publishers that had joined. The company was entered in the commercial register on November 30, 1960 ; Curt Vinz became provisional managing director. On January 15, 1961, the publishing house officially started its activity and was now under the direction of Heinz Friedrich . Friedrich was the then program director of Radio Bremen and from 1956 to 1959 chief editor of the Fischer library . Soon licenses from other publishers that were not part of the company were added, and production began. The Swiss graphic artist Celestino Piatti was responsible for the design of the books , who designed a uniform typographic and graphic appearance.

Example of Celestino Piatti's cover design

The partners in the contract included the publishers Artemis , Beck / Biederstein, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Hanser , Hegner , Insel , Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Kösel , Nymphenburger , Piper and Walter . In addition, Heinz Friedrich was listed as a partner.

Heinrich Böll's Irish Diary was published as the first title in 1961 and has been available as dtv number 1 without interruption ever since. Other titles in the opening year were Karl Jasper's The Atomic Bomb and the Future of Man and Friedrich Sieburg's Only for Readers . The cover design caused a sensation, as Piatti presented the dtv volumes in bright white, contrary to the usual colorful paperbacks, and each used an individual image for the title. He also used the Akzidenz-Grotesk font in right-aligned flutter . Celestino Piatti designed around 6,000 dtv envelopes until he retired from the publishing house in 1993.

The publishing program

Editions such as the first Goethe paperback edition, the Critical Nietzsche Werkausgabe and the German dictionary of the Brothers Grimm were trend-setting for the publisher . For contemporary German literature, the program includes: a. Heinrich Böll , Günter Grass , Siegfried Lenz , Uwe Timm , Angelika Schrobsdorff , Erich Loest , Rafael Seligmann , Christian Kracht , Antje Rávic Strubel , Christopher Kloeble , Wolf Wondratschek , Thomas Glavinic , Ulrich Woelk and Judith Zander . International literature is represented with paperback editions by authors such as Umberto Eco , TC Boyle , Michael Ondaatje , Henning Mankell , JRR Tolkien and German first editions by voices such as John Williams , Graham Swift , Eshkol Nevo , Mira Magén and Ha Jin . Even Julia Franck , Maxim Biller , Javier Marías , Milan Kundera , Andreas Kollender and António Lobo Antunes could be found for several years with several titles in the program.

The non-fiction program with publications on social, literary, (cultural) historical and political topics, guides and reference works includes, among other things. a. Daniel Goleman , Marcel Reich-Ranicki , Ian Kershaw , Wolfgang Benz , Verena Kast , Hildegard Hamm-Brücher and Marianne Koch among his authors. Multi-colored illustrated books such as André Heller's illustrated life are also published by dtv.

At dtv premium , paperback original and first editions from the areas of fiction and non-fiction have been presented in larger format since 1996. In 2012 the hardcover program dtv Hardcover started with Rita Falk's novel Hannes and Jussi Adler-Olsen's thriller Contempt . In 2014 the label dtvDIGITAL was founded to bring together the publisher's e-book activities.

The old logo (until 1996/97)

The company's first series, dtv dokumente , appeared in the year it was founded, the first volume of which was The Judgment of Nuremberg in 1946 . In the series, documents on history and contemporary history as well as on art , literature and intellectual history should be published with authentic texts. In the sixties there were other series such as dtv sachbuch , dtv art and the scientific series (from 1979 dtv science ). Complete editions by writers such as Goethe, Schiller or Büchner appeared, and with the episode dtv weltliteratur , the so-called “thin print editions” came onto the market from 1975. Only through the use of thin printing paper could more extensive works such as Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus or novels by Dostoyevsky be published.

Some series from the early years have been preserved to this day, such as the series dtv bilingual, recorded in 1973, and the series dtv large print, founded in 1977 . The latter includes a selection of dtv titles that appear unabridged in an eye-friendly “ Garamond 12 point” and are primarily intended for the elderly and visually impaired people. Furthermore, the series of reference works and atlases from the early sixties to the present day have been able to assert themselves and thus form an important sector in the publishing program.

The design was redesigned in 1996/1997. The first volumes of the dtv premium series were also published at that time .

The publishing series

Reference works and atlases

dtv Brockhaus

As early as 1962, the publishing house published data on German poetry by Frenzel, which was followed by other books on American, English and French literature. Two or four years later the dtv's most successful book was published; the dtv atlas on the world history of Hilgemann and children. Further volumes in the Dtv Atlas book series followed , including on biology , astronomy , atomic physics , architecture and music . In 1980 the publishing house designed the Pocket Atlas of the World in collaboration with Georg Westermann in Braunschweig , with which dtv succeeded in publishing a “real” atlas for the first time. In addition to atlases, the house publishes special dictionaries and lexicons . Licenses are often acquired from established publishers, which means that a. the series dtv-Lexikon was created. The series was designed based on the Brockhaus encyclopedia .

dtv junior

Logo: dtv junior

The children's and youth book program is divided into the two areas dtv junior and dtv series Hanser . dtv junior started in spring 1971 with ten volumes. Maria Friedrich was the founder and director until 1990; today the publishing division is headed by Susanne Stark. dtv junior offers reading for all age groups, from Lesebär for first-time readers to dtv pocket for teenagers and young adults. Authors such as David Almond , Josef Guggenmos , Astrid Lindgren , Dagmar Geisler , Tilde Michels , Margaret Peterson Haddix , Hans Dieter Stöver , JRR Tolkien , Renate Welsh , Erwin Grosche , Hans Peter Richter and Evan Kuhlman are represented.

dtv series Hanser

The dtv series Hanser has been supplementing the children's and youth book program since 1999 . It offers books from the children's book program of Carl Hanser Verlag as well as its own first editions. The first volume was the paperback edition of Jostein Gaarder's bestseller Sofies Welt . Other dtv series Hanser authors are u. a. Rafik Schami , David Grossman , Franz Hohler , Louis Sachar , Mats Wahl , Elke Heidenreich and Gerhard Staguhn .

Beck texts in dtv

In the series of Beck texts in dtv hardcovers appear many otherwise especially in loose-leaf as Schoenfelder and Sartorius available legal texts . In order to take account of the numerous changes in the law, new editions are often updated every year, sometimes more frequently.

Beck legal advisor in the dtv

This series contains guides on everyday legal issues, which are aimed primarily at laypeople in law .

Partner of the dtv

The following companies are or were shareholders of dtv:

Current shareholders

  • Dtv GmbH itself holds 1.2% of the shares.

Retired shareholders

Consequences of the shareholder model

The publishers involved originally published many of their hardcover titles in paperback on dtv. Most of the former shareholders had to leave because they created their own series of paperbacks and would have come into conflict with the partnership agreement, for example Insel, Kiepenheuer & Witsch or Piper. Others, such as CH Beck and Oetinger, have remained shareholders despite their own TB programs.

The dtv publishers

literature

  • 20 years of Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag: 1961–1981. A documentation . Editing: Michael Davidis, Hildegart Eichholz, Wolfram Göbel. dtv, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-423-99928-4 (contains the complete dtv directory 1961–1982 sorted by numbers).
  • Twenty five. A dtv documentation . dtv, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-423-99966-7 (including contributions by Heinz Friedrich, Horst Bienek and Celestino Piatti ).
  • "Your letter came just as requested ..." Heinz Friedrich as a publisher . Edited by Wolfram Göbel on behalf of the shareholders and employees of the Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. dtv, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-11253-0 .
  • 30 Years of Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag: 1961–1991. Data, pictures, books . Editing: Werner Berthel and Michael Groth. dtv, Munich 1991, DNB 911344993 .
  • Jens Müller (Ed.): A5 / 03: Celestino Piatti + dtv . The Unity of the Program (translated into English by Michael Robinson). Müller , Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-03778-178-4 (text in German and English).
  • dtv 50 years. Small publishing history . Editors: Susanne Krones and Fritz P. Steinle. dtv, Munich 2011, DNB 1049521099 .
  • Elisabeth Kampmann: Canon and publishing house. On the canonical practice of the Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag . Academy, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-005191-8 .
  • Daniela Völker: Deutscher Taschenbuch Publisher: dtv Taschenbücher (since 1961). In: The book for the masses. Paperbacks and their publishers. Edited by Stefan Neuhaus , Tectum, Marburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8288-3353-1 , pp. 240–250 (= Innsbruck Studies on Contemporary Literature and Film. Volume 9, Dissertation University Innsbruck 2013).

Web links

Commons : Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c dtv short profile. In: Buchreport 4/2014, p. 78
  2. ↑ Börsenblatt report from June 10, 2015
  3. ↑ FAZ article from September 20, 2011 on the 50th anniversary of the publisher
  4. ↑ dtv publishing history ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 10, 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dtv.de
  5. ↑ Article on www.boersenblatt.net. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on June 21, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.boersenblatt.net
  6. ↑ dtv publishing history ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 18, 2013  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dtv.de
  7. ↑ Until 2010 it operated as jtu Jugend-Taschenbuch-Union GmbH
  8. ↑ Holger Heimann: Sometimes I feel like an investment banker . In: Börsenblatt des Deutschen Buchhandels, issue 26 of July 1, 2010, pp. 22/23
  9. ^ Hannes Hintermeier : Hidden in the carp pond. Everyone knows the publisher, hardly anyone knows the publisher: why dtv boss Wolfgang Balk was right about that becomes clear when he leaves . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 3, 2015, p. 14.
  10. ↑ Flash message: Barbara Laugwitz is leaving Ullstein - and will be the new publisher of dtv , buchmarkt.de, published and accessed on June 9, 2020.