Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott

Collection of the best German prose Writers and Poets. Tenth Part: Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's Life: Sammlung der besten Deutschen prosaischen Schriftscheller und Dichter. Zehnter Theil: Gellerts Leben [Collection of the best German prosaic fonts and poets. Tenth part: Geller's life]

Carlsruhe [now Karlsruhe]: Christian Gottlieb Schmieder, 1774. Later Printing. Hardcover. A Very Good to Very Good+ copy of this (likely reprint edition) in the Publisher's original boards and wearing the RARE PUBLISHER'S ORIGINAL BINDERY DUST JACKET in Very Good condition and being a volume in the collection of the best German prose Writers and Poets. Tenth Part: Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's Life] Sammlung der besten Deutschen prosaischen Schriftscheller und Dichter. Zehnter Theil: Gellerts Leben [Collection of the best German prosaic fonts and poets, the tenth part: Geller's life.] The volume remains in the Publisher's original boards and wears the RARE PUBLISHER'S ORIGINAL BINDERY DUST JACKET in Very Good or better condition; being a volume in the collection of the best German prose Writers and Poets. Tenth Part: Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's Life] Sammlung der besten Deutschen prosaischen Schriftscheller und Dichter. Zehnter Theil: Gellerts Leben [Collection of the best German prosaic fonts and poets, the tenth part: Geller's life]. The volume is bound in contemporary three-quarter vellum with pastepaper-covered boards, unlabeled. The binding is only lightly worn and shows some foxing and residue from the jacket, mainly along the spine. The two-piece bindery jacket with handwritten spine labels is complete and underlaid with contemporary printers' scrap. The scrap looks to be from the 1740-60s but we have not been able to determine the date to a certainty. The volume has a folding frontispiece and the front free endpaper has been torn away and is not present. There is a long tear in the second folding plate, but it remains lightly attached. at the top of its inner side. Not only is this a notable work, but this copy is of HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE in that it wears its EXCEEDINGLY RARE ORIGINAL BINDERY DUST JACKET. In Mark Godburn's excellent work titled "Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets" published by Oak Knoll Press in the US and by Private Libraries Association in the UK, Godburn states: "In Germany in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some binders produced flap-style jackets that combined elements of hand- and machine-work. At least half a dozen examples survive, all sharing the same characteristics. They were all made of two pieces of paper pressed together, with marbled or pastepaper and contemporary printer's scrap underneath. They all were well cut, all folded with three flaps at each end, and all issued over plain or marbled boards, in some cases using the same paper as the binding." In further discussing the evolution of dust jackets, Godburn states: "Bindery jackets would not have been recorded in publishers' records, and may not always have been itemized in binders' records either. And since such dust jackets survived even less often than printed ones, the impression left decades later often was that no jackets had been issued at all. Sometimes the only surviving evidence that jackets were issued on a particular book is offsetting on the endpapers from the jacket flaps, although the flaps did not always leave a mark." Thus, we have here a notable book in an absolutely RARE BINDER'S DUST JACKET, something most collectors well never see outside a museum or another collector's library, much less ever own. Both the book and dust jacket are in Very Good or better condition. This is certainly a RARE copy and a RARE BOOK that tangibly illustrates a part of book history. A RARE OPPORTUNITY for the book collector as well as for a museum or University collection. An EXCEEDINGLY RARE ITEM AND AN AMAZING SURVIVAL.
[From Wikipedia: Christian Gottlieb Schmieder
Christian Gottlieb Schmieder ( December 20 , 1750 in Stuttgart – June 5 , 1827 in Karlsruhe ) was a bookseller and one of the most famous German reprinters in the second half of the 18th century.
Christian Gottlieb Schmieder was the son of Johann Jakob Schmieder, a valet to Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg . At the age of 20 he moved to Karlsruhe, where he worked as a factor in a Karlsruhe printing works before marrying Christina Katharina Wirsum (1746-1817), the heiress of a Karlsruhe bookshop, on July 23, 1771. Cotta had founded this bookstore, which he had managed by his son-in-law Max Wirsum until he died in 1750. At the latest after his marriage, Schmieder took over the Cotta'sche bookshop. Shortly thereafter, Schmieder began to set up a publishing house on this basis and published his first book, which was not yet a reprint.
Not only did the young publisher probably lack the capital and a printing shop, but also the situation on the book market at the time prompted Schmieder to focus on another branch of the book trade in 1773. The disputes between the imperial book trade and the Saxon publishers, which culminated in the Electoral Saxon Mandate of 1773, formed an ideal entry point for the up-and-coming publisher from southern Germany to earn money with reprints.]

His "collection of the best German prose writers and poets", which he began printing in 1774 with an imperial privilege , triggered a wave of complaints against the reprinter from the original publishers and authors, including Philipp Erasmus Reich and Georg Joachim Göschen , while his reprints were well received by the public for a much lower price.

After decades of unsettled business activity in his company, Schmieder ended his bookselling activity shortly after 1808 before accepting a position as ministerial clerk. Christian Gottlieb Schmieder died on June 5, 1827 at the age of 77.]. Very good + / very good +. Item #3772

Price: $10,250.00