Carl Geibel ''(né'' Carl Stephan Franz; 19 May 1842 - 5 June 1910) was a Hungarian-born

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

book dealer and publisher. He built up , the

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

based publisher of the (General German Biography), a 56 volume German dictionary of national biography covering approximately 26,500 notable German and Dutch people who died before 1900.Franz Neubert (editor), Deutsches Zeitgenossenlexikon, 1905 (in German)

Life

Family

Carl Stephan Franz Geibel was born in Pest (today the central part of

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

) where his parents were living in connection with his father's business. He was the eldest of his parents' four recorded sons. His father, (1806-1884), was also a successful book dealer and publisher. Carl Geibel, the father, came originally from Halle. The mother, born Leonore Weisz, had been born in 1820 in

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

, a city to the south of Budapest. His brother, Stephan Geibel (1847–1903), was the Managing Director of Pierer'sche Hofbuchdruckerei. Stephan Geibel & Co., a book publisher based in

Altenburg Altenburg () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located south of Leipzig, west of Dresden and east of Erfurt. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district and part of a polycentric old-industrial textile and metal production region betw ...

. Carl Geibel and his father were both investors in the Altenburg publisher. Carl Geibel (1842-1910) married Mathilde Baumgarten in 1870: she came from a family of prosperous

lawyers. This marriage, too, produced four recorded sons.

Education

The family lived in Pest till 1850, by which time Carl Geibel (1842-1910) had become fluent in Hungarian. After that, again in connection with his father's business activities, they moved to Leipzig. He attended St. Thomas School and then, between 1855 and 1858, the Ausfeld educational establishment in Schnepfenthal. After this he embarked on an apprenticeship in the book trade, initially with the pioneering book dealer .

Publishing

He moved on to work successively in

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 district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

(as it was known at that time) and

. In 1866, with his father, he took over the Berlin publishing firm of which they immediately relocated to Leipzig. In 1874 his father fell seriously ill with lung disease and had to spend his winters at a cure resort on the

Riviera () is an Italian word which means , ultimately derived from Latin , through Ligurian . It came to be applied as a proper name to the coast of Liguria (the Genoa region in northwestern Italy) in the form , then shortened in English. Riviera may a ...

. After a few years he recovered up to a point, and lived for another ten years, actively involved in the business. Nevertheless, from 1874 it was the son who was taking the lead role in running the business. During the final decades of the nineteenth century Duncker & Humblot, like many German publishing firms, grew strongly, focusing in subjects such as law and social sciences, and becoming one of the

empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

's leading academic publishers. In 1872 Carl Geibel was a founder member of the ("Social Policy Society").

Recognition

The Law faculty at

Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

awarded Geibel an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

in 1902 in appreciation of Duncker & Humblot's contribution as academic and legal publishers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geibel, Carl 19th-century German publishers (people) 20th-century German publishers (people) People from the Austrian Empire German expatriates in the Russian Empire Immigrants to the Kingdom of Saxony Businesspeople from Leipzig 1842 births 1910 deaths