The Correspondence between Author and Publisher at the End of the Eighteenth Century: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Georg Joachim Göschen

The correspondence between publishers and authors during the eighteenth century is a hybrid form between business letter and letter of friendship, of officalese and the new style created in the period of sensibility. This hybrid form of correspondence is demonstrated here by means of the correspondence between the author and philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) at Düsseldorf/Pempelfort and the publisher Georg Joachim Göschen (1752-1828) at Leipzig during the years 1786 to 1790. Especially striking is how approaches and tensions are reflected in the form of the letters. Within this interaction of interests exclusively in the written form of letters, Jacobi represents a specific and so far neglected type of author: The main focus for him was the largest possible effect of his works, whereas royalties – usually a common matter of dispute between author and publisher – was nothing more than a quantité négligeable. Moreover he arranged major parts of the production by himself. Both characteristics resulted in consequences on his behavior towards the publisher as well as on the negotiations of his interests. Apart from the specific correspondence the letters are a central source for the understanding of the eighteenth century, especially with respect to the rules gouverning the expression of interests and feelings, i.e. on how social relations were established.