De Gruyter
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Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature.


History

The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Berlin the royal privilege to open a bookstore and "to publish good and useful books". In 1800, the store was taken over by Georg Reimer (1776–1842), operating as the ''Reimer'sche Buchhandlung'' from 1817, while the school's press eventually became the ''Georg Reimer Verlag''. From 1816, Reimer used a representative palace at Wilhelmstraße 73 in Berlin for his family and the publishing house, whereby the wings contained his print shop and press. The building later served as the Palace of the Reich President. Born in Ruhrort in 1862, Walter de Gruyter took a position with Reimer Verlag in 1894. By 1897, at the age of 35, he had become sole proprietor of the hundred-year-old company then known for publishing the works of German romantics such as
Johann Gottlieb Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Heinrich von Kleist. De Gruyter later acquired four other publishing houses – Göschen, Guttentag, Trübner, and Veit – and, in 1919, merged them into one: ''Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger Walter de Gruyter & Co''., located in Genthiner Straße, where it is still headquartered today. The four publishers specialized in philosophy, theology,
German literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...
, medicine, mathematics, engineering, law,
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
, and
natural science Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
, and it is for many classics in these fields that de Gruyter is still known today. By the time he died in 1924, Walter de Gruyter had created one of the largest modern publishing houses in Europe. De Gruyter's son-in-law, Herbert Cram (1893–1967) succeeded him in the management of the company and it continues to be family-owned. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the roof and top floor of the de Gruyter building were destroyed and the basement warehouse flooded, but the building itself survived. On 14 May 1945, the publisher again registered for trading and was the first publisher in the British zone to receive a license. The company became Walter de Gruyter GmbH in 2012. In addition to its headquarters in Berlin, De Gruyter maintains offices around the globe, namely in
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, Vienna,
Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
,
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
,
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, and Beijing. In October 2023, it was announced that De Gruyter would acquire the Dutch publisher Brill for €51.1 million, forming the new company De Gruyter Brill, by the second quarter of 2024.


Imprints and partnerships

Several former publishing houses have become imprints of De Gruyter: * "De Gruyter Mouton/De Gruyter Saur" (formerly "Mouton de Gruyter") was purchased by de Gruyter in 1977. It was originally known as Mouton Publishers and based in
The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
. The imprint specializes in the field of
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
and publishes
academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...
s, research
monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...
s, reference works, multimedia publications, and bibliographies. * K. G. Saur Verlag, based in
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, was acquired in 2006 and retains the imprint "De Gruyter Saur". It specializes in reference information for libraries. * De Gruyter acquired the journals of Berkeley Electronic Press in 2011. * After filing for bankruptcy protection in 2012, publisher Birkhäuser was acquired by De Gruyter. * In 2012 De Gruyter also acquired the
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
publisher Versita. From 2014 until 2018, Versita was fully integrated into the imprint "De Gruyter Open", which also hosted several so-called mega journals and a blog, OpenScience, on open access in academia, reflecting the growing popularity of open access among researchers and academic institutions. In 2018, De Gruyter Open was relaunched as Sciendo. * In 2013 De Gruyter acquired two academic publishers from Cornelsen Verlag: ''Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag'' and '' Akademie Verlag''. * In 2019, De Gruyter acquired Jovis Verlag. De Gruyter is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach to funding open access books.


See also

* Berkeley Electronic Press * Journals published by de Gruyter * Books published by de Gruyter * Open access in Germany


References


Further reading

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:De Gruyter 1749 establishments in Prussia Academic publishing companies Book publishing companies of Germany Companies based in Berlin German companies established in 1749 Publishing companies established in the 1740s Publishing companies of Germany