Beyond Tauchnitz: Brockhaus’s Foreign-Language Editions, Copyright Law and the Rise of Nationalism

Abstract

Abstract Expanding the existing framework of a Franco-German axis of dissemination of print culture, this essay discusses a pan-European geography of the book trade to account for the dissemination of foreign-language editions circulating from the nineteenth-century Leipzig book industry and connecting publishers all over the European continent. More specifically, it reconsiders the history of the Brockhaus firm by highlighting its transnational links and the shared practices of the European publishers prior to copyright legislation and the rise of nationalism.