Moritz Bruhn

Moritz Bruhn (born February 27, 1806 in Glückstadt ; † August 7, 1883 in Hanover ) was a German publisher . From 1851 to 1876 he headed the CA Schwetschke & Sohn publishing house in Halle (Saale) and Braunschweig .

Life

Bruhn was born on February 27, 1806 in Glückstadt, Schleswig-Holstein. Nothing is known about his training as a bookseller and his first professional experience. In the early 1840s he lived in Schleswig, where his son Harald was born in 1841. In 1845 he published Schleswig-Holstein freedom songs in his publishing house (M. Bruhn) in Schleswig. At the end of the 1840s, Moritz Bruhn was co-owner of the von Rohden bookstore in Lübeck. During the Schleswig-Holstein War (1848–1851) the bookstore ceased operations. Bruhn, who had actively supported the freedom movement, had to flee after the defeat by Denmark in the battle of Idstedt and look for a new field of bookselling activity. He went to Halle, where he bought the CA Schwetschke & Sohn publishing house on May 1, 1851 . At first he continued to run the publishing house under the changed company CA Schwetschke & Sohn (M. Bruhn) in Halle, before moving the company headquarters to Braunschweig on September 1, 1852. At the same time he founded a printing house there at Dammstrasse No. 217, 218. In 1869 he transferred the printing house to his son Harald Bruhn . He initially granted him joint power of attorney for the publishing house, then made him a partner on January 1, 1872, and on January 1, 1876 transferred sole ownership of the publishing house to him. He spent the last years of his life in Wiesbaden and Hanover, where he died on August 7, 1883.

Act

Moritz Bruhn managed the publishing house CA Schwetschke & Sohn for over 25 years. From 1851 to 1876 he published around 200 works, including 145 book novelties and 53 new editions. Bruhn's publishing interest was primarily in scientific publications. In doing so, he covered - in the tradition of his predecessors Carl Hermann Hemmerde and Carl August Schwetschke - a wide spectrum of theology and law through philology, medicine, natural sciences and other specialist disciplines. His first publications include a number of standard works by important authors.

In the literature, Bruhn is described as an able and skilful publisher with a keen eye for the quality and market opportunities of academic book projects. Bruhn enjoyed a great reputation in contemporary specialist circles and published important works. So he published z. B. the legal sources (1860, 1864), a basic work of the law professor Otto Stobbe . The legal sources were planned as the first volume of a history of German law originally laid out in six volumes and edited by Georg Beseler ; In the end, however, Beseler was unable to complete this major project. The historian Wilhelm Giesebrecht became aware of Moritz Bruhn through a recommendation from Karl Müllenhoff , as he wrote in a letter to the publisher. Giesebrecht was so satisfied with Bruhn's printing of the first volume of his groundbreaking history of the German Empire (from 1855) that he thanked the "excellent publisher of the book" in the foreword. Heinrich Brunn , author of the well-known History of Greek Artists (1853, 1856) published by CA Schwetschke & Sohn , turned to Bruhn on the advice of the philologist Martin Hertz and the archaeologists Ludwig Ross and Johannes Overbeck . Hertz spoke in a letter with respect of the publisher as a "respected man and a renowned company". From the field of natural sciences, the three-volume handbook Theoretical, Practical, and Analytical Chemistry in Application to Arts and Crafts (1854 - 1862), published by Moritz Bruhn and later published in several new editions , written by the British chemist James Sheridan Muspratt and written by Friedrich Stohmann and others was translated into German.

Bruhn's publication of the large document book of the city of Braunschweig (Volume 1, 1873), a central source work on the medieval history of Braunschweig, was of regional significance . The city archivist Ludwig Hänselmann said the publisher in the foreword high thanks for the elaborate and careful equipment.

Literature (selection)

• Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 59–99, ISBN 978-3-447-05858-2 (especially pp. 66–69: overview of Moritz Bruhn's biography)
• Wolfgang Lent: "Good scholars are sometimes bad proofreaders": Braunschweiger Wissenschaftsverlag CA Schwetschke & Sohn . In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch zur Landesgeschichte. Braunschweigischer Geschichtsverein , Braunschweig 2005, Volume 86, pp. 81-93, ISSN  1437-2959
• Linus Irmisch: Brief history of the book printing works in the Herzogthume Braunschweig . School bookshop, Braunschweig 1890, p. 24f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 66f., 69 mw.
2. ↑ See Erich Neuss: Gebauer-Schwetschke: History of a German printing and publishing house 1733-1933 . Gebauer-Schwetschke publishing house, Halle (Saale) 1933, p. 150; Linus Irmisch: Brief history of the book printing works in the Herzogthume Braunschweig . School bookshop, Braunschweig 1890, p. 24.
3. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, p. 67, 69 mwNachw .; Luitgard Camerer: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Verlag Johann Heinrich Meyer, Braunschweig 1992, pp. 20f.
4. ↑ See complete publishing catalog of the German book trade (complete until 1880). III (third division). Adolph Russel's Verlag, Münster 1881, pp. 234–295 and Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 71-75 (statistical analysis of the publications). See also the authors and works cited as examples from Bruhn's publishing program in the Wikipedia article Verlag CA Schwetschke & Sohn .
5. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 68f., 98f.
6. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 87-89.
7. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 83-87.
8. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 75-77.
9. ↑ See Wolfgang Lent: News from a publishing estate - On the history of the science publisher CA Schwetschke & Sohn and its publisher Moritz Bruhn (1851 - 1876) . In: Leipzig yearbook on book history. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, Volume 17, pp. 77-83.
10. ↑ Cf. Wolfgang Lent: "Proficient scholars are sometimes bad proofreaders": Braunschweiger Wissenschaftsverlag CA Schwetschke & Sohn . In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Braunschweigischer Geschichtsverein, Braunschweig 2005, Volume 86, p. 86.