Justus Perthes Publishers () was established in 1785 in Gotha, Germany. Justus Perthes was primarily a publisher of geographical and historical atlases and educational wall maps. They published the Almanach de Gotha (German Gothaischer Genealogischer Hofkalender) from 1785 to 1944, and Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen from 1855 to 2004. In 2016 the publisher was dissolved.
Almanacs
In 1778, Johann Georg Justus Perthes worked as a bookseller in Gotha. He founded the publishing firm Justus Perthes in September 1785, when he got a fifteen-year lease to publish the Almanach de Gotha, an annual French-language compilation of statistics on nations of the world. This almanac was published from 1763 to 1777 by Carl Wilhelm Ettinger in Gotha. It was only after the second 15-year lease in 1816 that the almanac was published with the Perthes publishing house imprint. The publication of the almanac as a Justus Perthes publication ceased in 1944.
In later years, Perthes published other sets of almanacs in the German language: Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der gräflichen Häuser(1825–1941) Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der freiherrlichen Häuser (1848–1942) Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der uradeligen Häuser (1900–1919) Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der briefadeligen Häuser (1907–1919). Updating the almanacs required a lot of documentation and data collection, which was good preparation for later geographical publications. In 1911, these documents were added to Perthes' library, ‘Bücherei der Geographischen Anstalt von Justus Perthes,’ which already contained many maps and geographical publications. After the Second World War, the Soviet army destroyed the almanac archives to prevent claims of the House of Romanov on the tsarist's throne.
Atlases
Stieler's Hand-Atlas
From 1790 onwards, Perthes enlarged his publisher's list with obituary lists, histories, the circumnavigation of the earth by Antonio Pigafetta and the life history of Martin Behaim. In 1814, he was joined by his son Wilhelm Perthes (1793–1853) who had been in the publishing house of Justus's nephew Friedrich Christoph Perthes at Hamburg. In 1816, on Johann Georg Justus' death in Gotha, Wilhelm took over the firm and laid the foundation of the geographical branch of the business.
In 1801, the company published its first geographical book with a map of Germany by Adolf Stieler. In 1809 they published their first atlas, but with the changing political and administrative boundaries due to the Napoleonic wars meant that it was not a financial success. Perthes was not daunted, and soon agreed to a proposal by Adolf Stieler to publish Stielers Handatlas. Stieler proposed to create the atlas together with Christian Gottlieb Reichard (1758–1837), who later drafted part of the maps. Before the first issue of the atlas could be distributed in 1816, Perthes died and was succeeded by his then 23-year-old son Wilhelm Perthes.
As with many publications in that era, the Stieler was published in issues. In 1823, the preliminary edition in 4 issues was completed, with 50 maps. This model was a success, and demand for the atlas outstripped supply. The relatively small size of , made it quite handy. Most maps used scales of 1:3,700,000, 1:925,000 and 1:850,000. Stieler used the French toise as the basic unit of scale.
The original plan was that the first edition of the atlas would be accompanied by a textbook. This was only published, however, in 1840-1846. While the preliminary edition was still being published, Friedrich von Stülpnagel (1786–1865), who also was responsible for the 2nd and 3rd edition, was already revising the maps for the next edition. The first official edition of 1833 contained 75 maps. Through the years, the number of maps increased, and the final edition of 1925-1945 contained 254 main and auxiliary maps on 188 leaves.
Preliminary: , 1816–1833, 50-75 maps (Adolf Stieler & Heinrich Berghaus) 1st ed.: , 1834–1845, 75-83 maps. (Adolf Stieler & Friedrich von Stülpnagel) 2nd ed.: , 1846–1852, 83 maps (Friedrich von Stülpnagel) 3rd ed.: , 1853–1862, 83-84 maps (Friedrich von Stülpnagel) 4th ed.: , 1863–1867, 84 maps (August Petermann) 5th ed.: , 1868–1874, 84 maps (August Petermann) 6th ed.: Hand-Atlas über alle Theile der Erde und über das Weltgebäude, 1875–1881, 90 maps (Hermann Berghaus & Carl Vogel) 7th ed.: Adolf Stieler's Hand Atlas über alle Theile der Erde und über das Weltgebäude, 1882–1889, 95 maps (Hermann Berghaus & Carl Vogel) 8th. Ed.: Adolf Stieler's Hand Atlas über alle Theile der Erde und über das Weltgebäude, 1890–1902, 95 maps (Alexander Supan) 9th ed.: Stielers Hand-Atlas, 1905–1924, 100 maps (Hermann Haack) 10th ed.: Stielers Hand-Atlas, 1925–1945, 108 maps (Hermann Haack) International ed.: , 1934–1940, 84 maps (Hermann Haack)
From 1821 onwards the Stieler was also published as a school atlas, and by 1914 93 German and foreign editions of the school atlas had been published. In later years the Stieler would be the basis for many other Perthes publications, such as Stielers Schulatlas der alten Welt (23 editions 1824-1852). In addition to the International edition (1934-1941) of the big Stieler from 1851 onwards at least 12 foreign editions were published in the United States and other European countries.
Shortly after Stieler's death in 1836, Perthes posthumously published his 25-part map of Germany and surrounding countries at a scale of 1:740,000. This was the first mid-scale map of Germany that was marketed by a private firm, where an official large scale map was converted into an easy-to-use reference and travel map. This publication met with such a great demand that several editions were published up to the Second World War. Shortly after the death of Stieler, his map collection was bought by Perthes and added to the company library.
In 1902, J.G. Bartholomew wrote: "No other private firm has ever been associated with so many distinguished geographers and cartographers, or rendered such great services to geographical science by its high-class works as Justus Perthes of Gotha".
Berghaus's physikalischer Atlas
Between 1833 and 1837 Heinrich Berghaus created the Atlas von Asien. It was meant as the first part of the never realized project titled Große Atlas der außereuropäischen Erdteile. The publication not only resulted in the enormous loss of 5,240 Reichsthaler, but also in everlasting fame. As Bernhard Perthes, fourth generation publisher, wrote in 1885: "While the direct profit was absolutely nothing – yes, even worse than that, the firm had to carry this failure for many years - the indirect profit was immense. The Atlas von Asien made Justus Perthes at one time world-famous".
The next big project for the firm was the Physikalischer Atlas () of Heinrich Berghaus. This first thematic world atlas (with issues covering meteorology, hydrography, geology, magnetism, plant geography, animal geography, anthropology, and ethnography) was published as a complement for the 5-volume work Kosmos by Alexander von Humboldt. Heinrich Berghaus edited the first two editions himself, while his nephew Hermann Berghaus edited the third edition. Von Humboldt provided Berghaus with data that he had acquired during his explorations and Berghaus processed these into physical maps, for which he used many kinds of isolines and a whole range of new symbols. He liked to project thematic content on top of topographic maps, and was very interested in the correct depiction of heights. Some maps of the first edition carry the signature "drawn and engraved in the ‘Geographische Kunstschule’ () at Potsdam". Between 1839 and 1844 Berghaus tutored there, amongst others, August Petermann, Heinrich 'Henry' Lange and his nephew Hermann Berghaus. As compensation, the pupils had to edit amongst others maps for the Stieler and the Physikalischer Atlas. This happened with map 2 from issue 2 of the second edition of the Physikalischer Atlas (Hydrography) which shows, among other things, the discovery by Von Humboldt that the river Casiquiare was the watershed between the rivers Orinoco and Rio Negro. In 1850 the big atlas was converted into a school atlas. This first thematic atlas had such a great influence in its time that the publisher Alexander Keith Johnston requested Berghaus to make some maps for the first part of his Physical atlas of natural phenomena. Though Berghaus did not find the British scientific climate ripe enough for such publications he complied. His criticism was repeated half a century later by J.G. Bartholomew, who declared that British contributions to the geographic sciences mainly lay in ‘search’, while the German contributions mainly lay in ‘research’. For the second part of his atlas Johnston required the cooperation of Heinrich Lange and August Petermann, who both moved to Scotland, in 1844 and 1845 respectively.
Between 1850 and 1852 Berghaus published four issues of the Geographisches Jahrbuch, that were meant as supplements on several of the Perthes’ atlases. In 1854 the editorship of these annuals was taken over by his former pupil Petermann. This, plus the fact that his son August was not engaged by Perthes in 1854, made Berghaus decide to break off his relationship with the publisher.
1e ed.: , 1837–1848, 90 maps 2e ed.: Dr. Heinrich Berghaus' Physikalischer Atlas, Sammlung von 93 Karten, auf denen die hauptsächlichsten Erscheinungen der anorganischen und organischen Natur nach ihren geographischen Verbreitung und Vertheilung bildlich dargestellt sind, 1849–1863, 93 maps 3e ed.: Berghaus' Physikalischer Atlas, 1886–1892, 75 maps
Spruner's historisch-geographischen Hand-Atlas In 1838 Perthes added the Historischer Atlas von Bayern by Karl Spruner von Merz (1803-1892) to his publishing list. This was soon followed by the Historisch-Geographischen Hand-Atlas (ed. 1869), published between 1848 and 1853. To make comparison easier with the Stieler the same scales were used as much as possible. Heinrich Theodor Menke edited many maps for the second and third (1909) editions. Foreign editions were published in London, Turin and New York.
Von Sydow's Methodischer Schulatlas While teaching at the Erfurt military school Emil von Sydow (1812-1873) was taken up by the problems of how to improve geographical educational. Eventually he ended up with Perthes, and a plan to publish a series of wallmaps. While cartographers like Friedrich von Stülpnagel and Christian Bär drew the outlines for the maps, Sydow painted in the colours green for lowlands and brown-red for higher areas, a system still in use today. When Carl Ritter saw the first map Asia he was very much taken with how it was decluttered from redundant toponyms and the way it was coloured. When Von Sydow's wallmap seriesWandatlas uber alle Theile der Erde, 1838-1847 in the 20th century was replaced by the series developed by Hermann Haack, the latter emphasized red for higher mountainous areas.
As a follow-up to Stielers Schulatlas, von Sydow created the E. von Sydows Methodischer Schulatlas. From 1879 to 1943 this was published as the Sydow-Wagners Methodischer Schulatlas. To emphasize the contrast between text and atlas when describing landscapes he wrote in his introduction: "Even when text has to divide the subject of geography in several parts and to isolate it for systematic education in independent levels, it is preferably the task of the map to neutralize this division and to fuse the independent parts together into a wholeness".
Von Sydow spent most of his energy editing the Der kartographische Standpunkt Europas (), that was published twelve times between 1857 and 1872 in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen and contained 357 pages in total.
Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen