thumb|180px|Christian Bernhard von Tauchnitz

Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. They published English language literature for distribution on the European continent outside Great Britain, including initial serial publications of novels by Charles Dickens. Though copyright protection did not exist between nations in the 19th century, Tauchnitz paid the authors for the works they published, and agreed to limit their sales of English-language books to the European continent, as authors like Dickens or Bulwer-Lytton had separate arrangements for publication and sale in Great Britain.

Carl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz

Carl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz (1761–1836), born at Grossbardau near Grimma, Saxony, established a printing business in Leipzig in 1796 and a publishing house in 1798. He specialized in the publication of dictionaries, Bibles, and stereotyped editions of the Greek and Roman classics. He was the first publisher to introduce stereotyping into Germany.</blockquote>

thumb|160px|Christian Karl Bernhard Tauchnitz. from a portrait by [[Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy]]

In 1841, when Tauchnitz started his English-language editions, there were no copyright treaties between England or the United States and Continental countries. Although Tauchnitz's editions were authorised, they were not protected from copyright infringement and he could offer no such protection to the authors he paid. A few years later, various Continental States formed copyright treaties with Britain: Prussia and Saxony in 1846, France in 1852, and successively nearly all European states. In these countries, the Tauchnitz Authorised Edition became the Copyright Edition. Finally, the Berne Convention of 1886 conferred copyright upon authors in its fullest form over the greater part of the developed world. Tauchnitz editions were the only authorised editions of works by American authors on the Continent of Europe until 1891, when, by the Copyright Treaty with the United States of America, they too became copyright editions. From 1866 to 1895 he was British consul-general for the kingdom and duchies of Saxony.

Christian Karl Bernhard

Christian Bernhard was succeeded in the business by his son, Baron Christian Karl Bernhard Tauchnitz (born 29 May 1841). Christian Karl received his education at the Fürstenschule in Meissen, studied law at the Universities of Berlin, Zürich and Leipzig, and was a Doctor of Jurisprudence, and had passed the state examination by the age of twenty-one. He made a tour of Europe, stayed some time in England, and learned to speak and write English with barely a flaw. In 1866, he entered into partnership with his father at his firm.

References

Citations

Sources

  • An incomplete, but representative list of the Collection of British and American Authors
  • A Tauchnitz catalogue from July 1910
  • Complete history and bibliography on Tauchnitz Publishers maintained by a collector
  • Collection of British and American Authors - Checklist arranged by serial number.
  • List of books in series "Collection of British Authors" from Worldcat.org
  • Finding aid to Tauchnitz imprints at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.