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Even so, the volume gives a reliable general account of Nicolai’s
publishing activities. Drawing mainly on Nicolai’s vast correspondence,
c. 15,000 letters by some 2,500 individuals, Selwyn elaborates
on the various aspects of his career in the book trade. She describes
the organization of his publishing company and his bookshop in one
of the fashionable quarters of the Prussian capital, reconstructs his
battles with pirate publishers and censors in the German states,
analyses the relationship with his authors, and evaluates his editorship
of the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, a highly influential and,
over a long period, commercially extremely successful review journal
modelled on the Monthly Review, but with a decidedly German focus.
Edited and published by Nicolai from 1764 to 1805 with a short interruption
in the 1790s, it established him as the foremost exponent of the
German Enlightenment. His unwaveringly Enlightened stance was
also clearly expressed in his publishing lists, which reflect the utilitarian
orientation of the late Enlightenment. While at the beginning of
Nicolai’s career literary figures such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
and Moses Mendelssohn counted among his authors, the focus soon
shifted to scholarly and informative works which promoted the
improvement of agriculture, technology, education, and religion.
Therefore areas like pedagogical reform, theology, science, mathematics,
medicine, geography, and travel accounts dominated, whereas
belles-lettres and philosophy were relegated to the margins.
Pornographic books or clandestine literature, which played such a
prominent role in Israel’s and Jacob’s studies, did not feature at all. In
line with this more prosaic attitude was also his dislike of the luxurious
editions published by some of his competitors. He was convinced
that the German reading public preferred cheap to beautiful
books. Accordingly his own products made no claim to any bibliophile
standards. An affordable price was more important to him than
good quality paper or a special font—not for commercial reasons, he
alleged, but in order to disseminate Enlightened ideas more easily.
�ortunately, Selwyn’s publishers decided to go the other way and
have produced an elegantly printed volume on fine paper.
Among the best sections of the book are those that deal with the
day-to-day running of a bookshop and publishing house at the end
of the eighteenth century. They provide deep insights into the tiresome
world of compositors, printers, proof-readers, copy editors,
and apprentices in the book trade. �or example, Selwyn depicts in
45
A War of Words?