The dove by miss you, 2 części 1866r - Bernhard Christian
Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz was just 20 years old in 1837 when he founded in Leipzig the publishing firm that bore his name. He had earlier been apprenticed to his uncle Karl Tauchnitz, an eminent printer-publisher who had introduced stereotyping to Germany. He appears to have decided early to specialise in publishing editions in foreign languages, and particularly English. The first volume in the ‘Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors’ appeared in 1842 and over the next 100 years the series went on to comprise some 5370 volumes. Although it included the works of many American, as well as British authors, from as early as volume 15 in the series, it was not until 1914 that the name of the series was extended to include British and American Authors.
When the series was first launched there was no recognised international copyright convention and it was common for English language novels to be published in Europe without any recognition of copyright or any payment to the author. The earliest volumes in the Tauchnitz series were reprints of books already widely available in Germany and had no authorisation from the authors. However Tauchnitz quickly realised that obtaining explicit authorisation from authors in return for payment, might not only be more honest, but also more profitable, giving him early access to the latest novels available in English.
In the summer of 1843 Tauchnitz put a proposal to a small number of authors to pay them a fee in return for authorisation to publish their works and his proposal was accepted initially by three authors in July 1843 – G.P.R. James, Bulwer Lytton and Lady Blessington. Five others – Dickens, Disraeli, Ainsworth, Samuel Warren and Captain Marryat accepted shortly after and works by all these authors and a small number of others appeared in the Tauchnitz series as editions ‘sanctioned by the author’ over the next three years.
This pioneering move helped to drive forward moves towards international copyright protection and in 1846 an Anglo-German treaty established an international copyright. From that point on Tauchnitz editions were published under international copyright, giving them some protection against piracy by other publishers. Under the terms of the copyright they could be sold throughout Continental Europe and elsewhere, but could not be imported into the British Empire, or in the case of American authors, into the USA.
The goodwill gained by these early moves enabled Tauchnitz to establish and maintain close relationships with many of the leading British and American authors and become the principal publisher of English language books in continental Europe. In many cases authors sent him early proofs of their work, so that he was able to publish them at the same time as the British publisher, or in some cases even earlier. By 1860 the ‘Collection of British Authors’ had grown to 500 volumes and in this same year he was awarded an hereditary baronage, indirectly arranged by Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.
Further honours followed in 1872 when he was appointed British Consul at Leipzig and in 1877 when he was nominated to a life peerage in the upper chamber of the Saxon parliament. His publishing business continued to thrive, with the 1000th volume of its main series published in 1869 and the 2000th volume in 1881. By the time the firm celebrated its golden jubilee in 1887, with the publication of a history of the business, the Collection of British Authors had grown to over 2400 volumes and it published its 3000th volume before the death of the first Baron Tauchnitz in 1895.
Vol 835, vol II- 1866r. 250str./ Vol I- 1866r. 261str
