Georg Joachim Göschen


Georg Joachim Göschen was a German publisher and bookseller in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony, notable for typography and his publications of music and philosophy. He was the patriarch of the Goschen family, whose English branch rose to prominence as bankers and politicians, including the Viscounts Goschen and Goschen baronets.

Early life

Born Jürgen Joachim Göschen, he was the second child of merchant Johann Reinhard and Gebeta Göschen. Johann's own father, Emanuel, was a doctor who had settled in Bremen. Johann eventually was ruined financially and abandoned the family. Georg was admitted to the August Hermann Francke orphanage until relatives arranged for him to live in Arbergen with Rev. Hinrich Erhard Heeren, who educated him. At age 15, he began an apprenticeship with the bookseller Johann Heinrich Cramer in Bremen. In 1772, he moved to Leipzig, where he worked as an assistant to publisher Siegfried Leberecht Crusius.

Career

In 1785, with the financial backing of Christian Gottfried Körner, Göschen opened his own publishing house in Leipzig, the. His first major client was Körner's friend Friedrich Schiller, who was looking for someone to publish his journal Thalia. Göschen published numerous works for Schiller, including Don Carlos in 1787 and Geschichte des dreißigjährigen Kriegs in 1789.
One of Göschen's early successes was Rudolph Zacharias Becker's Noth- und Hülfsbüchlein für Bauersleute. With 30,000 copies sold in its first edition, the publication was a cornerstone of educational history in Germany.
Göschen much preferred to print more classic subjects and scientific journals, and was the first German publisher to print affordable books for the general public. From 1786 to 1790, he published the first complete edition of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works in eight volumes. He also published 42 volumes of the works of Christoph Martin Wieland.
He moved the printing house to Grimma in 1797. There he was granted an unlimited licence to print and was free from the restrictive rules of the Leipzig printers guild. Göschen has been lauded for his efforts to improve letterpress printing; with the best examples being deluxe editions of the Greek New Testament and Homer's works.
Göschen assumed a leadership role among German booksellers on issues such as copyright law and fixed prices. In 1802, he published his manifesto, Meine Gedanen uber den Buchhandel.
Göschen died in 1828. His youngest son, Hermann, sold the publishing house in 1838. Ownership of the company changed hands several times until it was purchased by Walter de Gruyter & Co. in 1919.

Family

In 1788, he married Johanna Henriette Heun, sister of author Heinrich Clauren. They had 10 children, six of whom survived into adulthood:
His third son Wilhelm Heinrich Göschen came to England in 1814 and the next year co-founded the merchant banking firm Frühling & Göschen, of Leipzig and London. Wilhelm's eldest son George Goschen entered politics and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Goschen in 1900. In 1903, Lord Goschen published a biography of his grandfather, The Life and Times of Georg Joachim Goschen, Publisher and Printer of Leipzig, 1752–1828.
Lord Goschen's younger brother Edward Goschen was made a baronet in 1916, while his nephew Harry Goschen was made a baronet in 1927.