Velhagen & Klasing

Velhagen & Klasing was a major German publishing company in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

History

Long nineteenth century

Übersichtskarte von Afrika, 1886 (published in Andree's Allgemeiner Handatlas, 1887)

Velhagen & Klasing's first major success was the popular cookbook of Henriette Davidis from 1844 to 1875.[1][2] The company earned 2,762 Thaler in the cookbook's peak sales year in 1858,[2] or the equivalent of over US$40,000 in 2021.[4] Davidis argued fiercely with the company over her compensation, and her royalty payment increased from 50 to 1000 Thaler over its publication history.[1]

In the 1870s and 1880s, Velhagen & Klasing sold two-thirds of its Lutheran and patriotic works through Colporteur salesmen, at the time a new method of marketing through door-to-door salesmen.[5][a]

Another area that Velhagen & Klasing emphasized was geography textbooks. In this area, Ferdinand Hirt [de], who published Ernst von Seydlitz [de]'s works, was their major competitor.[6] In the mid-to-late 1800s, Hirt & Sohn[b] and Velhagen & Klasing together had an oligopoly in the German textbook market.[7][8]

Velhagen & Klasing was also dominant in popular children's literature.[9] Their popular novels for girls in this era conveyed largely the same values as their schoolbooks, namely virtue, piety, self-sacrifice, and docility.[9]

In the late nineteenth century, Velhagen & Klasing published a number of very popular adventure novels by S. Wörishöffer.[10][11] She was hired by Velhagen & Klasing to rewrite an unsuccessful novel by a previously unpublished writer, Max Bischoff, which resulted in Robert des Schiffsjungen (1877).[10][12] The publisher intentionally hid the identity of Wörishöffer, who was not the world traveling male that the novels implied, in order to preserve their credibility.[11]

In 1886, they began publishing the illustrated family monthly, Velhagen & Klasing's Monatshefte, which included reviews by Carl Hermann Busse.[13][clarification needed]

In 1901, they bought the publishing company of Georg Wilhelm Ferdinand Müller (1806–1875) from his heirs. Müller's work consisted primarily of textbooks.[14]

The publisher had significant involvement in the Leipzig Geographical Society, known as Geographischer Abend.[15]

After World War I

When World War I caused a redrawing of national boundaries, some publishers, such as Columbus Verlag of Berlin [de], began developing geographical maps which ignored territorial boundaries. Velhagen & Klasing rejected this shift and focused on territorial boundaries.[16] Velhagen & Klasing published the second most popular school atlas in Germany in the 1920s, after the one made by Carl Diercke.[17] Their atlases in this era were examples of cartographic propaganda intentionally designed to promote German nationalism,[18] as had their other textbooks since the nineteenth century.[19] The trend to expand the borders of Germany and German cultural influence in Velhagen & Klasing's maps began in the late 1920s, and by 1933 their maps contained large-scale falsifications.[20]

Velhagen & Klasing was one of many who profited from the closure of Jewish and left-wing publishing companies during the Nazi Party's rise to power in the 1930s.[21]

Notes

  1. ^ Occupational breakdown of Velhagen & Klasing's consumers is available in Fullerton (2015, p. 246)
  2. ^ Founded by Arnold Hirt

Citations

  1. ^ a b Goozé 2007, p. 268.
  2. ^ a b Fullerton 2015, p. 167.
  3. ^ 1500 to 1850: Ulrich Pfister, 2010. "Consumer prices and wages in Germany, 1500 - 1850," CQE Working Papers 1510, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster. 1851-1882: Coos Santing, 2007, Inflation 1800-2000, data from OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Outlook. Historical Statistics and Mitchell, B. R. International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia and Oceania 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, International Historical Statistics, Europe 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, and International Historical Statistics, The Americas 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998. After 1883, German inflation numbers based on data available from the Deutsches Statistisches Bundesamt archive and GENESIS database.
  4. ^ According to the Destatis Federal Statistical Office, 2,762 Thaler in 1882 is worth US$38,265 in 2009. It seems reasonable to assume there was some inflation between 1858–1882.
  5. ^ Fullerton 2015, p. 245.
  6. ^ Tatlock 2010, p. 187.
  7. ^ Tatlock 2010, p. 162.
  8. ^ Askey 2013, p. 5.
  9. ^ a b Askey 2013, p. 104.
  10. ^ a b Ramos, Cortez & Mourão 2017, p. 124f.
  11. ^ a b Grewling 2014, p. 111.
  12. ^ Grewling 2014, p. 122.
  13. ^ Kafka 2016, p. 407.
  14. ^ Graham & Sarkowski 2008, p. 389, Ch 1. n. 1.
  15. ^ von Maltzahn 1905, p. 33-34.
  16. ^ Nekola 2015, pp. 143–144.
  17. ^ Herb 2002, p. 97.
  18. ^ Herb 2002, p. 111.
  19. ^ Askey 2013, p. 10.
  20. ^ Liebenberg, Demhardt & Vervust 2016, p. 218.
  21. ^ Barbian & Sturge 2013, p. 315.

References

  • Tatlock, L. (2010). Publishing Culture and the "reading Nation": German Book History in the Long Nineteenth Century. Studies in German Literature. Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-402-8.
  • Herb, Guntram Henrik (2002). Under the Map of Germany: Nationalism and Propaganda 1918–1945. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-134-79790-5. ProQuest Revised from National self-determination, maps, and propaganda in germany, 1918-1945 (PhD). University of Wisconsin-Madison. 1993. ProQuest 304053437.
  • Fullerton, R.A. (2015). The Foundations of Marketing Practice: A history of book marketing in Germany. Routledge Studies in the History of Marketing. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-53612-3.
  • Liebenberg, E.; Demhardt, I.J.; Vervust, S. (2016). History of Military Cartography: 5th International Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, 2014. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-319-25244-5.
  • Barbian, J.P.; Sturge, K. (2013). The Politics of Literature in Nazi Germany: Books in the Media Dictatorship. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4411-6814-6.
  • Goozé, M.E. (2007). Challenging Separate Spheres: Female Bildung in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Germany. North American studies in nineteenth-century German literature (in German). Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-03911-018-6.
  • von Maltzahn, H. (1905). Friedrich Ratzel: ein Gedenkwort (in German). CUP Archive.
  • Graham, G.; Sarkowski, H. (2008). Springer-Verlag: History of a Scientific Publishing House: Part 1: 1842—1945 Foundation Maturation Adversity. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-540-92887-4.
  • Grewling, Nicole (2014). "Inventing America: German racism and colonial dreams in Sophie Wörishöffer's Im Goldlande Kalifornien (1891)". In McFarland, R.B.; James, M.S. (eds.). Sophie Discovers Amerika: German-Speaking Women Write the New World. Camden House. Camden House. p. 111ff. ISBN 978-1-57113-586-5.
  • Nekola, Peter (2015). The concept of the geographical, 1919-1939 (PhD). New School University. ProQuest 1705563207.
  • Ramos, A.M.; Cortez, M.T.; Mourão, S. (2017). Fractures and Disruptions in Children's Literature. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5275-0426-4.
  • Askey, J.D. (2013). Good Girls, Good Germans: Girls' Education and Emotional Nationalism in Wilhelminian Germany. Studies in German Literature. Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-562-9.
  • Kafka, F. (2016). Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors. Kafka library. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8052-0949-5.

Further reading

  • Frey, Axel (1997). "Aus der Leipziger Buchhandels- und Verlagsgeschichte. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld und Leipzig" [History of the book trade and publishing in Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipzig]. Sächsische Heimatblätter. 43 (1). Jahrgang: 34–39.
  • Lewy, G. (2016). Harmful and Undesirable: Book Censorship in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-19-027529-7.
  • Maurer, Kathrin (2013). Visualizing the Past: The Power of the Image in German Historicism. Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-028293-1. ProQuest
  • Meyer, Horst (1985). Velhagen & Klasing: Einhundertfünfzig Jahre, 1835-1985 [Velhagen & Klasing: One hundred and fifty years, 1835-1985] (in German). Berlin: Cornelsen-Velhagen & Klasing. ISBN 3-464-00002-8. OCLC 28293392.
  • Pfau, Karl Friedrich [in German] (1910), "Velhagen und Klasing", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 55, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 638–641
  • Tabaczek, Martin (2003). Kulturelle Kommerzialisierung: Studien zur Geschichte des Verlages Velhagen & Klasing 1835-1870 [Cultural commercialization: Studies in the history of the publisher Velhagen & Klasing, 1835-1870] (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 3-631-51093-4. OCLC 54695707. Adapted from Tabaczek's 2001 dissertation at Universität-Gesamthochschule Essen.
  • Tabaczek, Martin (2010). "Religiöse Literatur und ihre Kommerzialisierung zwischen Vormärz und Reichsgründung. Das Beispiel des Verlages Velhagen& Klasing" [Religious literature and its commercialization between Vormärz and Reichsgründung: The example of the publisher Velhagen & Klasing]. Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens. 65: 213–227.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Velhagen & Klasing.
  • Internet Archive books published by Velhagen & Klasing
  • Open Library page
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