Fictitious place of publication

The fictitious place of publication is a term used in publishing.

Fictitious places of publication appeared in the 16th century and became rarer again from the 19th century. The territorial focal points were the German-speaking area, France , Italy , and more rarely England . In addition to the use of pseudonyms and anonymous , the fictitious place of publication was an effective means of protecting the literature producer (publisher, printer) from persecution by the authorities . In some cases the names of the printer and the publisher were also faked (example: Pierre Marteau , Cologne , sometimes translated to: Peter Hammer, Cologne ). Fiction was also occasionally used to deceive the author if the publisher was planning a reprint or a new edition that he should not know about.

Cities with an extensive book trade such as Amsterdam and London were initially used as place names in order to make censorship even more difficult. There were also allusions to events of the time, for example Austerlitz , Constantinople , Philadelphia (in the American-anti-British freedom movement). A not insignificant proportion of the fictitious places of publication can be classified in the class of those for whom the author wanted to provide an indication of the tenor of his work. Examples are compositions with True , Free , Peace (en) - . Rome was often faked as the place where anti-Catholic writings were published.

The German publisher Emil Weller is considered an important analyst of fictitious places of publication .

literature

Emil Weller : The wrong and fake print locations . Leipzig 1864–1867 [Reprint Hildesheim 1960]