The Manesse Verlag is a German

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

house for classical literature, founded in 1944 in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

in Switzerland. It belongs today to

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

publishing group based in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. The publishing house is mainly known for its library of world literature. It also publishes first and new translations of classical works. Manesse is directed by Horst Lauinger.

History

Walther Meier founded the Manesse Verlag in Zürich in 1944. Two years earlier, he had discussed the idea of a "world literary library" for classical literature, with the printing house Conzett & Huber. The name of the publishing house was based on the

Codex Manesse The Codex Manesse (also Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift or Pariser Handschrift) is a ''Liederhandschrift'' (manuscript containing songs), the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German ''Minnesang'' poetry, written and illustrat ...

. The first two works published by Manesse Verlag in 1944 were "Moby Dick" by

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...

translated by Fritz Güttinger and "Goethe im Gespräch" (Goethe in Conversation) by Eduard Korrodi. In the mid 1950s, the 100th volume of the so-called Manesse Library of World Literacy was published, "Deutsche Lyrik des Mittelalters" (German Lyric of the Middle Ages) by

Max Wehrli Max Wehrli (17 September 1909 – 18 December 1998) was a Swiss literary scholar and Germanist. Wehrli studied from 1928 till 1935 Germanic and Greek at the Universities of Zurich and Berlin. Among his teachers were Emil Ermatinger, Ernst Howal ...

, and in 2004 came the 600th volume,

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...

's "Tom Jones". After Walther Meier had handed over the management of the publishing house to Federico Hindermann in the early 1970s, Conzett & Huber completely separated from Manesse in 1983. The publisher became an independent company and was taken over by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. After the turn of the millennium, Horst Lauinger followed Anne Marie Wells as the publisher. In September 2005, it was announced that the Random House publishing group wanted to take over the book publishers of the

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...

, including Manesse, DVA and the Kösel Verlag. The purchase price was, according to media reports, in the lower double-digit million range. From viewers, the purchase was labeled as a "late development of the newspaper industry". Publishers of competing companies warned against further concentration of the industry. It was feared in particular that the diversity of the German book market would be jeopardized. Random House publishing group took over all shares in the Manesse Verlag GmbH and was therefore the sole shareholder. Manesse is a programmatic and publicly independent publisher of the company today. The corresponding company was deleted from the commercial register.

Program

Eine Frage der Schuld (Sofja Tolstaja, 2008)

Manesse is a classic publishing house that mainly publishes new and first translations. In the publishing house, works by authors such as

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

, Herman Bang, Tania Blixen,

Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...

Eduard von Keyserling Johann Heinrich Eduard Nicolaus Graf von Keyserling (May 14, 1855 – September 28, 1918) was a Baltic German fiction writer and dramatist, an exponent of literary impressionism and associated with the historic region of Courland. Biography ...

, Joaquim Maria

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short stor ...

Nizami Ganjavi Nizami Ganjavi ( fa, نظامی گنجوی, lit=Niẓāmī of Ganja, translit=Niẓāmī Ganjavī; c. 1141–1209), Nizami Ganje'i, Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal name was ''Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī'',Mo'in, ...

Italo Svevo Aron Hector Schmitz (19 December 186113 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (), was an Italian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. A close friend of Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, Svevo ...

, and

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle por ...

were published. In 1994 Manesse published "German Narrators of the 20th Century" by

Marcel Reich-Ranicki Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...

. The publisher achieved a great deal of recognition in 2001 with "Eine Bluttat, ein Betrug und ein Bund fürs Leben" ( A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage) by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

. The narrative was published in a translation by Frank Heibert and an epilogue by Georg Klein published at the same time as the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

original. Among the best known works of the publishing house are

Sophia Tolstaya Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (née Behrs; russian: Со́фья Андре́евна Толста́я, sometimes anglicised as ''Sophia Tolstoy''; 22 August 1844 – 4 November 1919), was a Russian diarist, and the wife of Russian writer ...

's "Eine Frage der Schuld" (A question of guilt) and "101 Nacht" (101 nights). All the volumes of the World Literary Library are thread-bound, bound in linen, and equipped with a reading tape. The name of the author and the titles of the book are usually in gold on the back of the book. Each volume contains an epilogue by a contemporary author,

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

or literary scholar.

Literatur

* ''Manesse Almanach auf das 40. Verlagsjahr''. Manesse, Zürich 1984,
DNB
* ''Manesse Almanach auf das 50. Verlagsjahr''. Manesse, Zürich 1994,
DNB
* ''Vom Glück des Lesens und Gelesenwerdens''. Manesse, Zürich 2004,
DNB

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Swiss companies established in 1944 Book publishing companies of Switzerland Book publishing companies of Germany Mass media in Munich Random House Publishing companies established in 1944