Johann Georg Justus Perthes (11 September 1749 – 2 May 1816) was a
German publisher
Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...
and founder of
the publishing house that bears his name.
Life
He was born in the
Thuringia
Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area.
Er ...
n town of
Rudolstadt, the son of a
Schwarzburg court physician. From 1778 he worked as a bookseller in nearby
Gotha
Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...
, where he founded the
cartographic publishing firm ''Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt Gotha'' in 1785. In this, he was joined in 1814 by his son Wilhelm Perthes (1793–1853), who had been in the publishing house of Justus's nephew
Friedrich Christoph Perthes at
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
. On Justus' death in Gotha, Wilhelm took over the firm and laid the foundation of the geographical branch of the business for which it is chiefly famous, by the first publishing of the ''
Hand-Atlas'' from 1817–1823 after
Adolf Stieler (1775–1836).
Wilhelm Perthes engaged the collaboration of the most eminent German geographers of the time, including Stieler,
Heinrich Berghaus (1797–1884),
Christian Gottlieb Reichard (1758–1837), who was associated with Stieler in the compilation of the atlas,
Karl Spruner (1803–1892), and
Emil von Sydow (1812–1873).
The business passed to his grandson Bernhardt Wilhelm Perthes (1821–1857),
who was associated with
August Heinrich Petermann under whose direction the well-known periodical ''Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen'' was first edited in 1855, and
Bruno Hassenstein (1839–1902); and in the next generation to his son Bernhard Perthes (1858–1919), who was born after his father Bernhardt Wilhelm had died.
Since 1785 the firm also issued the
Almanach de Gotha
The ''Almanach de Gotha'' () is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility, also including the major governmental, military and diplomatic corps, as well as statistical data by country. First published in 1763 by C. W. Ettinger in ...
, a statistical, historical and genealogical annual (in
German and
French) of the various countries of the world (first published by Carl Wilhelm Ettinger, Gotha, in 1763); and in 1866 the elaborate ''Geographisches Jahrbuch'' was produced under the editorship of
Ernst Behm (1830–1884), on whose death it was continued under that of Professor
Hermann Wagner.
References
*
External links
*See an 1872 map by August Petermann, published by Justus Perthes
''[Map of Texas, Indian Territory, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas] / bearbeitet v. H. Habenicht.''hosted by th
Portal to Texas History
*The 1875 Stieler Hand-Atlas, and many other maps and atlases, are viewable online a
*More information about the history and the current situation of the huge archive (map collection">map archive, bibliothèque) of 'Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt Gotha' (including 'VEB Hermann Haack Geographisch-Kartographische Anstalt Gotha', publishing firm in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1955 to 1991, and 'Justus Perthes Geographische Verlagsanstalt Darmstadt', publishing firm in Darmstadt from 1953 to 1994), as well as about the current publishing house 'Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Zweigniederlassung Gotha, Programmbereich Klett-Perthes' available online a
perthes.de(German language)
*More information about 'Almanach de Gotha' (English) online a
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perthes, Justus
1749 births
1816 deaths
18th-century German publishers (people)
Map publishing companies
People from Rudolstadt
People from Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt