Heinrich Klemm (publisher)

Heinrich Klemm

Johann Heinrich Klemm (born September 19, 1819 in Old Franconia , † November 28, 1886 in Dresden ) was a German tailor, writer , publisher , book collector and patron .

Life

Klemm was the son of a village tailor and was an orphan when he was a child . As such, he soon had to work, but was able to attend the village school in Pesterwitz , where he stood out due to his great talent. His strong inclination to read made him save every penny, with which he bought plenty of reading material for little money at the old book dealer Helmert , an old Dresden original .

At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a master tailor in the nearby town of Wilsdruff at the expense of the community with his older brother Carl . After completing his apprenticeship, he went on a journey through Germany. He realized how outdated and backward the tailoring trade was everywhere.

In 1844 he settled in Leipzig with his brother Carl, who had worked for years in important Parisian studios , and founded a drawing institute for clothes makers . His first work was published in 1846: a complete textbook of modern tailoring and processing of all men's clothes . In 1847 he became editor at Voigt in Weimar and decided to devote himself entirely to the book trade and writing.

In 1850 he moved to Dresden, where he married and founded H. Klemms Verlag , where he published his own works, mostly textbooks and specialist books. Later he also dealt with the economic situation of the tailors and was against the compulsory guild . Then he published more and more fashion magazines and was very successful with it. With the fortune he acquired, he acquired a large collection of books, in particular medieval manuscripts and cradle prints . The childless Klemm sold the collection to the Kingdom of Saxony in 1885 . It formed the basic inventory of the German Museum of Books and Writing in Leipzig.

Klemm died in Dresden in 1886. The Heinrich-Klemm-Weg is named after him in his birthplace and today's Dresden district of Altfranken , where he donated money for the school .

literature

• Bettina Rüdiger: A Book Collection in the 19th Century. About some of the provenances of the Heinrich Klemm Collection . In: Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte , Vol. 16 (2007), pp. 383–396.
• KF Pfau: Biographical Lexicon of the German Book Trade of the Present. Leipzig 1890, pp. 205-208. (with picture, with errors in content)
• Viktor Hantzsch :  Klemm, Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 204-208.

Web links

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