Nikolaus Trübner

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Nikolaus Trübner, 1871.

Nikolaus Trübner , actually Johann Nicolaus Trübner , (born June 12, 1817 in Heidelberg , † March 30, 1884 in London ) was a German bookseller and publisher .

Life

Trübner was a son of the long-established goldsmith Karl Albrecht Trübner. His nephew was the Strasbourg publisher Karl Ignaz Trübner ( Verlag Karl J. Trübner ). Trübner finished his school days at the grammar school in his home town and began training as a bookseller in the academic bookstore of Jakob Christian Mohr and Johann Georg Zimmer in the winter of 1831/32 .

In 1838 he moved to Carl August Ruprecht ( Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ) in Göttingen . Three years later Trübner went to Hamburg to Julius Campe to learn the work of a publisher in his publishing house . In the following year he moved to Frankfurt am Main in the Friedrich Wilmanns publishing house . There he made the acquaintance of the publisher W. Longman , who immediately engaged him to London .

In the spring of 1843 Trübner came to London and began to work as a bookseller for the Longman publishing house. During these years he also started with small translations and in 1848 he achieved a small economic success with “Sketches of Flemish Life” ( Hendrik Conscience ). When the economic situation calmed down again after the revolution of 1848/49 , Trübner tried to set up his own publishing house.

In the fall of 1851 Trübner left the Longman publishing house and founded a publishing house with financial support from his home country. Above all, the bookseller Thomas Delf was involved in this company. The founding turned into a disaster and after a few months Trübner had to file for bankruptcy. In the same year he founded the Trübner & Co. publishing house (Paternoster Row, near St Paul's Cathedral ) together with the London publisher David Nutt . When his business partner died in 1863, he bought his shares from his heirs and ran the publishing house on his own.

In 1873 the Trübner & Co. publishing house moved into a prestigious office building in Ludgate Hill ( City of London ). Through his former partner Delf, Trübner had very good contacts to North American publishers and booksellers. His “Bibliographical guide to American literature”, published in 1855, is still considered a milestone in the history of the US book trade. In the summer of 1855 he traveled to the USA for a few months. In doing so, u. a. the acquaintance of Hermann Ludewig, whose work "The Literature of American Aboriginal Languages" he also published in 1857.

Trübner recognized how important the North American market could become to him, but also placed great emphasis on the global presence of his publisher. After just a few years, books from the Trübner & Co. publishing house were represented in Istanbul, Tehran, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai and Yokohama. Over the years, there were also agencies in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne), South America (Valparaiso, Rio de Janeiro) and Africa (Cape Town, Johannesburg). In order to have a suitable advertising tool, Trübner founded the magazine "Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record" in 1865.

In order to be able to judge oriental literature himself, Trübner learned Sanskrit from Theodor Goldsticker and Hebrew from Abraham Benisch during these years . In 1878 he founded the Oriental Series, which was very successful from the start . As early as 1858 he had brought the English translation of the Austrian Lloyd's Egypt travel guide by WC Wrankmore onto the market. Another focus besides "Oriental literature" was Trübner's efforts to make works of German philosophy accessible to English readers in good translations. Important authors were Ludwig Feuerbach , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Eduard von Hartmann and Arthur Schopenhauer .

During the entire Franco-German War Trübner supported his fatherland with political essays and essays, which he published in his record .

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Heidelberg University in 1886, Trübner donated almost his entire private library to the university. Since he died eleven weeks before his 67th birthday on March 30, 1884, his widow accepted this request and handed over the library in the summer of 1885. As a highlight of the celebrations, the books could be presented in a festive setting.

His business partners Edwards and Duffing ran the publishing house until 1889 and then merged with the publishing houses Kegan , Paul and Trench .

Works (selection)

as an author
  • Bibliographical guide to American literature . 1855.
as editor
  • Hermann E. Ludewig: The literature of American aboriginal languages . 1857.
as translator
  • Hendrik Conscience: Sketches of Flemish Life .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a significantly expanded 2nd edition appeared as early as 1859.
personal data
SURNAME Trübner, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trübner, Johann Nicolaus (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bookseller and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1884
Place of death London