Heinrich Hubert Houben

Heinrich Hubert Houben [spr. 'hu: bn] (born March 30, 1875 in Aachen ; † July 27, 1935 in Berlin ) was a German literary scholar and journalist.

Life

Houben graduated from high school in Düsseldorf in 1893, then studied German, philosophy and history in Bonn, Berlin and Greifswald and received his doctorate in 1898 with a thesis “ Studies on the Dramas of Karl Gutzkows ”. From 1897 to 1898 he worked as editor of the Düsseldorfer Neuesten Nachrichten , taught from 1898 to 1905 at the Humboldt Academy , the Lessing University and the School of the German Theater in Berlin, from 1907 to 1919 worked for the FA Brockhaus publishing house in Leipzig, from 1919 to 1921 director of the literary department of the Leipzig trade fair office and from 1921 to 1923 literary director of the German publishing house in Berlin. He lived here as a freelance journalist from 1923 until his death. Since 1916, Houben had the title of professor, which had been awarded to him by the Saxon Ministry of Culture.

Houben's main research areas included four areas:

• The literature of Young Germany (especially Karl Gutzkow , Heinrich Laube and Heinrich Heine ),
• Goethe and his environment (especially Johann Peter Eckermann , Ottilie von Goethe , Frédéric Soret ),
• the history of censorship and
• Journal Bibliography. In the field of literary documentation he was and is considered a pioneer.

In 1902, Houben was the founder and until 1907 secretary of the German Bibliographical Society in Berlin, which compiled numerous repertories for periodicals of the 19th century ( Almanacs of Romanticism, Journals of Young Germany, Sunday Supplement of the Vossische Zeitung ) and other sources, around 1905 a register the diaries of Varnhagen . Houben was one of the first scholars in Germany to systematically and archive important periodicals of the 19th century in terms of literature, theater and culture and to make their content accessible.

In addition, Houben tracked down several hidden literary estates or partial estates and discovered, among other things, the Weimar diaries of Frédéric Soret, which he published in 1929, which were important for Goethe research . He put on extensive collections of autographs and letters, including a Gutzkow collection of many thousands of letters, which is now in the Frankfurt University Library , as well as a collection of letters from Heinrich Laube. In addition, he conducted basic research for his work "Verbotene Literatur" in state archives by viewing censorship files, primarily from the 19th century. As the editor of several individual and work editions (including a fifty-volume Laube edition), with biographical monographs, essays and source works, Houben left a diverse life's work in literary studies. In later years, Houben edited and wrote travelogues (including works by Sven Hedin ), which achieved large editions and were translated into several languages.

Houben had been married to Martha Müller (1874–1951) since April 3, 1902, who published as a writer, children's and youth author under the name Martha Granow and Martha Houben -Granow. The marriage had three children.

Houben was buried in 1935 in the Roman Catholic St. Michael cemetery in Berlin-Neukölln. The tomb no longer exists today.

Works (selection)

Most of the time Houben published his works as "HH Houben".

• Gutzkow finds. Contributions to the literary and cultural history of the nineteenth century . Wolff, Berlin 1901
• Emil Devrient . His life, his work, his legacy . Ruetten u. Loening, Frankfurt a. M. 1903
• (Ed.) Bibliographical Repertory - Publications of the German Bibliographical Society , 6 vols. Berlin: B. Behr's Verlag 1904–1912 content and digital copies at Wikisource
• Heinrich Laube's life and work . Reprint from: Heinrich Laubes selected works in ten volumes. Hesse, Leipzig 1905
• Young Germany magazines . 2 vol. Behr, Berlin 1905–1909. (= Publications of the German Bibliographical Society. Vol. 4–5. Bibliographical Repertory. Vol. 3–4.)
• (Ed.) Karl Gutzkows selected works in twelve volumes . Hesse, Leipzig around 1908.
• (Ed.) Heinrich Laubes collected works in fifty volumes . With the assistance of Albert Hänel . Hesse, Leipzig 1908–1909
• Young German Sturm und Drang. Results and studies . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1911.
• Censorship here - who there? The bound Biedermeier . Reclam, Leipzig 1990. (= Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. Vol. 1340. [Reprint of the editions from 1918 and 1924. With an afterword by Günter de Bruyn .])
• Prohibited literature from classical times to the present. A critical-historical encyclopedia about banned books, magazines and plays, writers and publishers . 2 vols., Rowohlt, Berlin 1924; (Vol. 2 :) Schünemann, Bremen 1928. (Reprint: Olms Verlag 1992, ISBN 3-487-01027-5 ). Digitized edition of the two volumes from 1924 in the University and State Library of Düsseldorf
• Johann Peter Eckermann . His life for Goethe. Depicted from his newly found diaries and letters . 2 vol., Haessel , Leipzig 1925–1928
• Small flowers, small leaves from Biedermeier and Vormärz . A bouquet for my 50th birthday . Rauch, Dessau 1925
• (Ed.) Conversations with Heine . First edition 1926. Rütten and Löning, Potsdam 1948.
• Police and censorship. Longitudinal and cross sections through the history of book and theater censorship. Gersbach, Berlin 1926.
• The call of the north. Adventure and heroism of the North Pole drivers. Wegweiser-Verlag, Berlin 1927.
• Storm on the South Pole. Adventure and heroism of the South Pole drivers Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1934
• (Ed.) Frédéric Soret: Ten years with Goethe. Memories of Weimar's classical period 1822–1832. Handwritten from Sorets. Estate, his diaries and his correspondence. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1929.
• The unlawful Goethe. Grote, Berlin 1932.
• The Rhine Countess. The life of Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen from Cologne. Essen, Essen Publishing House, (1935). With obituary for HH Houben.
• Censorship here - who there? Yesterday's answers to today's questions. The bound Biedermeier. Literature, culture, censorship in the good old days . ( Reclams Universal Library , 1340). Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-379-00532-0 .

literature

• Gerhard Rudolph:  Houben, Heinrich Hubert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 658 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hans-Dieter Holzhausen: Finding happiness in the finder's reward. In memory of HH Houben . In: Philobiblon . 1995, pp. 228-241.
• Ute Schneider: Houben, Heinrich Hubert. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 810-812.
• Wolfgang Rasch: Grabbe, Gutzkow and Journale. From Alfred Bergmann's correspondence with Heinrich Hubert Houben . In: Imprimatur. A yearbook for book lovers. NF, Vol. XXII, Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 187-224.
• Wolfgang Rasch: How Laube came to Detmold. About a Heinrich Hubert Houben collection in the estate of Alfred Bergmann. In: Grabbe-Jahrbuch 2011/12. 30./31. Jg. Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2012, pp. 256–268.

Web links

Wikisource: Heinrich Hubert Houben  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Heinrich Hubert Houben in the catalog of the German National Library