Johann Friedrich Vieweg (; 11 March 1761 – 25 December 1835) was a German publisher and the founder of Vieweg Verlag.

Early life

He was the son of master tailor Johann Valentin Vieweg (d. 1785), who later owned a starch factory. After cancelling an apprenticeship in

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...

, a chance acquaintance with Friedrich Nicolai led him to become a bookseller in the Halle Orphanage bookstore. His experience there led to a position as an assistant at the Bohn Bookstore in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. It was there he met the publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe and his daughter Charlotte, who would become Vieweg's wife. In 1784, he moved to Berlin to look after the Mylius Bookstore, whose owner was ill. After the owner's death in 1786, Vieweg founded his own publishing business. His first success was an edition of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

's lyrical epic ''

Hermann and Dorothea ''Hermann and Dorothea'' is an epic poem, an idyll, written by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe between 1796 and 1797, and was to some extent suggested by Johann Heinrich Voss's ''Luise'', an idyll in hexameters, which was first publis ...

''. In October 1795, he married Charlotte Campe.

Work in Braunschweig

Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand wanted to establish a Book Fair and make Braunschweig the center of the German bookselling trade. At the Duke's request, Vieweg moved there in 1799 and was presented with some land and a dilapidated theater where he could set up his operations. After the expulsion of the Duke by the Napoleonic Army, Vieweg came under suspicion because of his close association with him. As a result, he turned away from publishing to operate a

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

and a playing card factory. When sovereignty was restored in 1815, he became involved in politics and public works administration, serving for some time as a city councillor. In 1824, a planned patriotic weekly called the "Braunschweigische Hauschronik" failed to materialize. From 1826 to 1828, he produced the "Mitternachtblatt für gebildete Stände" (Evening Journal for Educated Readers) in cooperation with Adolf Müllner but, due to some disagreements, it was sold to Niedmann’s Verlag in

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel (district), Wolfenbüttel Distri ...

. Upon his death in 1835, his publishing company passed to his eldest son,

Eduard Vieweg Hans Heinrich Eduard Vieweg (15 July 1797, Berlin - 1 December 1869, Braunschweig) was a German publisher; the owner of Vieweg Verlag. Biography He was born to the publisher and bookseller, Friedrich Vieweg. When his family moved to Braunschw ...

. In 1837, his younger son Friedrich Vieweg Jr. (1808–1888) founded his own publishing company in Paris and one of his daughters, Blanca, married the publisher Georg Westermann.

References

External links

Braunschweig University Library: Vieweg Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vieweg, Friedrich 1761 births 1835 deaths 18th-century German publishers (people) German booksellers