Friedrich Christoph Perthes (21 April 1772 – 18 May 1843) was a German publisher. He was the nephew of Johan Georg Perthes.

Life

Perthes was born at

Rudolstadt Rudolstadt is a town in the German federal state Thuringia, with the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north. The former capital of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the town is built along the River Saale inside a wide v ...

Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was a small historic state in present-day Thuringia, Germany, with its capital at Rudolstadt. History Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was established in 1599 in the course of a resettlement of Schwarzburg dynasty lands. Since t ...

. At the age of fifteen he became an apprentice in the service of Adam Friedrich Bohme, a bookseller in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, with whom he remained for about six years. In

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, where he settled in 1793 as an assistant to the bookseller Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann, he started in 1796 a book selling business of his own, and in 1798 he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Johann Heinrich Besser (1775–1826). By his marriage in 1797 with a daughter of the poet,

Matthias Claudius Matthias Claudius (15 August 1740 – 21 January 1815) was a German poet and journalist, otherwise known by the pen name of “Asmus”. Life Claudius was born at Reinfeld, near Lübeck, and studied at Jena. He spent the greater part of his li ...

, he was brought into intimate relation with a group of Protestant writers, who exercised a powerful influence on the growth of his religious opinions. This, however, did not prevent him from being on friendly terms with a number of eminent Roman Catholic authors. Perthes was an ardent patriot; and during the period of Napoleon's supremacy he distinguished himself by his steady resistance to French pretensions. His zeal for the national cause led him, in 1810–1811, to issue Des deutsche Museum, to which many of the foremost publicists in Germany contributed. For some time the French made it impossible for him to live in Hamburg; and when, in 1814, he returned to that city he found that his business had greatly diminished. In 1821, his wife having died, he left Hamburg, transferring his business at

Jungfernstieg The Jungfernstieg () is an urban promenade in Hamburg, Germany. It is the city's foremost boulevard. Location Jungfernstieg mostly lies within the quarter of Neustadt; however at its easternmost it stretches as far as Hamburg-Altstadt. In to ...

to his partner, and went to

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

, where he established what ultimately became one of the first publishing houses in Germany. It was owing to his initiation that the Borsenverein der deutschen Buchhandler (Union of German Booksellers) in Leipzig was founded in 1825. When the foundation-stone of the fine building of the Union was laid in 1834, Perthes was made an honorary freeman of the city of Leipzig, and in 1840 the

university of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy. Perthes died at Gotha on 18 May 1843. ''His Life'' was written by his son, Klemens Theodor Perthes (1809–1867), professor of law in the university of Bonn, and author of Das deutsche Staatsleben vor der Revolution (Hamburg and Gotha, 1845), and ''Das Herbergewesen der Handwerksgesellen'' (Gotha, 1856, and again 1883), whose son Hermann Friedrich Perthes (1840–1883) was the founder of the Fridericianum at Davos Platz. The publishing business at Gotha was carried on by Perthes's younger son, Andreas, (1813–1890) and his grandson, Emil (born 1841), until 1889, when it was handed over to a company.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Perthes, Friedrich Christoph 1772 births 1843 deaths Businesspeople from Thuringia People from Rudolstadt People from Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt German publishers (people)