Karl Gotthelf Lessing

Karl Gotthelf Lessing

Karl Gotthelf Lessing (born July 10, 1740 in Kamenz , † February 17, 1812 in Breslau ) was a German mint director, comedy writer and the first biographer and estate administrator of his brother Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . Among other things, he was the later owner of the Vossische Zeitung , which at that time was still called the “Königlich Privilegirte Berlinische Zeitung of state and learned things”.

Life

Karl Gotthelf Lessing was the son of the Protestant pastor Johann Gottfried Lessing (1693–1770), author of theological works, and Justine Salome Feller (1703–1777). He was the much younger brother of the German poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , had eleven more siblings and was the fourth youngest in the Lessing family. After attending the Latin school in his hometown, he moved to the electoral princely school in Meißen in 1756 and enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1761 in order to study medicine. He switched to the law faculty, but did not complete his studies there, but went to his brother in Berlin in 1765. He married one of the heiresses of the Vossische Zeitung Marie Friederike Voss (* December 26, 1752, † October 24, 1828), descendant of the founder of the Vossische Zeitung Christian Friedrich Voss . In May 1770 Moses Mendelssohn found him an assistant position at the Berlin General Mint Directorate, and in 1779 he was promoted to Mint Director in Breslau.

One of the sons of Karl Gotthelf Lessing, the lawyer and chancellor of Prince Biron von Kurland in Polish-Wartenberg Carl Friedrich Lessing was the father of the painter Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880), who in turn was the father of the painter Heinrich Lessing (1856-1930) and Konrad Lessing (1847–1916) and the sculptor Otto Lessing (1846–1912).

Karl Gotthelf Lessing died on February 17, 1812 in Breslau, his wife on October 24, 1828 in Berlin.

Spectacles

• The mute chatterbox. A comedy in three acts. 1768
• The lottery player, or the five lucky numbers. A comedy in three acts. 1769
• The tomboy. A comedy in five acts. 1769
• Without a harlequin. A joke in an elevator. 1769 (later reworked to Die Physiognomistinn without knowing it. )
• The rich woman. A comedy in five acts. 1776
• The bankrupt animal. A comedy in five acts. 1777
• A comedy in three acts. 1778
• The mistress. A comedy in five parts. 1780

Translations (selection)

• The Man of Feeling . Henry Mackenzie novel . 1774

Quote

"Because making people happy
means: putting them in the happiest state"

- Karl Gotthelf Lessing to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, March 22, 1769

Works

• GE Lessing's life, along with his remaining literary estate. Berlin: 1793–1795 (3 volumes).
• Drama by Karl Gotth. Leßing (Berlin: bey Christian Friedrich Voß 1778)
• Drama by Karl Gotth. Leßing (Berlin: bey Christian Friedrich Voss and son 1780)

literature

• Karl Gotthelf Lessing - Drama in three volumes. Edited by Claude Conter. Volume I. Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag , 2007. ISBN 978-3-86525-001-8
• Karl Gotthelf Lessing - Drama in three volumes. Edited by Claude Conter. Volume II. Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2007. ISBN 978-3-86525-002-5
• Wolfgang Milde :  Lessing, Karl Gotthelf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 346 ( digitized version ).
• Jörg Kuhn : Ms. Münzdirektor MF Lessing, nee Voss, and the story of a grave slab, in: Yearbook 2006 of the Association for the History of Berlin, Volume LV, Berlin 2006, pp. 55–64. ISSN  0522-0033

Web links

• Works by and about Karl Gotthelf Lessing  in the German Digital Library
• Literature by and about Karl Gotthelf Lessing in the catalog of the German National Library