Publishers and Cultural Patronage in Germany, 1890-1933

In a speech to his colleagues at the 1901 Congress of Publishers in Leipzig, one publisher proclaimed that a Louis XIV, of the Medicis, of a Maecenasin short, all the famous figures whom history recognizes as protectors of literature.Discovering meritorious emerging talent, helping it along in its earliest stages, encouraging it, supporting it, often providing it with the means it needs for its self-development, strengthening it and if necessary protecting it against its adversaries, insuring in general a carefree existence for the musesdo we not do this every day?In pointing out the resemblance of publishers to patrons, this bookman recognized a phenomenon of which contemporary writers, too, were becoming increasingly aware-although the writers viewed the situation rather differently.The obscure, disgruntled author Erich Eckertz, for example, complained in 1913 that the dependent relationship of a writer to a patron, which was so common during the Renaissance and even in Goethe's day, appears today to be changing into a dependency of authors toward publishers.A publisher behaves toward his writers like the prince did in those days, and one can look forward with foreboding to an epic poem in which the hero is not one of the Medicis, but rather a modern publisher

Art · Comparative and World Literature · Decadence, Literature, and Society · German Literature and Culture Studies · History

• New Views of Freedman Labor and European Publishing

  Open Access•Jack R Censer•International Labor and…•1977

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