Harper’s Family Library

Die Harper's Family Library (engl.; „Harpers Familienbibliothek“) ist eine von den Verlegern James und John Harper („J. & J. Harper“) herausgegebene amerikanische Buchreihe, die seit 1830 in New York erschien.

Erstausgabe von Two Years Before the Mast von Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1840) als Nr. 106 der Reihe

Die Harper-Brüder waren Pioniere im Bereich der Buchreihen-Publikation. Die Family Library, die als die "billigste Reihe populärer Werke, die jemals veröffentlicht wurde" ("cheapest series of popular works ever published") beworben wurde, wuchs über fünfzehn Jahre und umfasste 187 Sachbücher.[1]

Das Programm der Reihe beinhaltete die Hauptzweige des "nützlichen Wissens": Geschichte, Reisen und Reisen, Biographie, Naturgeschichte, Naturwissenschaften, Landwirtschaft sowie Geschichte der Philosophie und Religion:

„"It was suggested that the intellectual value of any one book was enhanced by its being part of an approved system or circle of knowledge."[2]“

Den ersten Band der gänzlich nicht-fiktionalen Reihe bildete die History of the Jews (Geschichte der Juden) des Oxforder Historikers Henry Hart Milman. Das Werk

„"brought down on him the censure of the Church. This history is aggressively rationalistic; it treats the Jews as an Oriental tribe, and all miracles are either eliminated or evaded. He was nevertheless presented with a piece of plate by some representative Jews in recognition of his sympathetic attitude. His history was republished in 1863 and 1867." / […] brachte ihm den Tadel der Kirche ein. Diese Geschichte ist aggressiv rationalistisch; sie behandelt die Juden als einen orientalischen Stamm, und alle Wunder werden entweder eliminiert oder umgangen. Dennoch wurde ihm von einigen repräsentativen Juden als Anerkennung für seine sympathische Haltung eine Tafel (a piece of plate) überreicht. Seine Geschichte wurde in den Jahren 1863 und 1867 neu aufgelegt.[3]“

Die Erstausgabe von Zwei Jahre vorm Mast / Two Years Before the Mast (1840) von Richard Henry Dana, Jr. beispielsweise ist in der Reihe erschienen.

Zitat

„During the depression of the 1830s, Harper & Brothers hit upon the idea of increasing sales by packaging many titles together in a series of great books. The Harper's Family Library was the first of these series, and a great success. Contemporary figures had strong attitudes regarding the series: John Quincy Adams praised it for helping to educate citizens in what they needed to know to participate in a democracy, but Henry Thoreau protested its attempt to shape American literary taste.[4]“

Auswahl

Die folgende Übersicht erhebt keinen Anspruch auf Aktualität oder Vollständigkeit: [5]

1 History of the Jews Volume I;
2 The History of the Jews Volume II;
3 History of the Jews Volume III;
4 History of Buonaparte Volume I;
5 History of Buonaparte Volume II;
6 Life of Nelson;
7 Life of Alexander the Great;
8 Natural History of Insects;
9 Life of Lord Byron;
14 Discovery and Adventure in the Polar Seas and Regions;
16 Discovery and Adventure in Africa;
17 Lives of the Painters and Sculptures Volume I;
18 Lives of the Painters and Sculptures Volume II;
19 Lives of the Painters and Sculptures Volume III;
21 Mary Queen of Scots Volume I;
22 Mary Queen of Scots Volume II;
27 Palestine or the Holy Land; <!—http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n90656337/ Russell, Michael, 1781-1848 https://archive.org/details/palestineorholyl00russ_1/page/n5/mode/2up -->
28 Memoirs of the Empress Josephine;
29 The Court and Camp of Bonaparte;
31 The Eventful History of the Mutiny of the Bounty;
32 Turner's Sacred History of the World;
33 Celebrated Female Sovereigns Volume I;
34 Celebrated Female Sovereigns Volume II;
35 Lander's Discovery of the Termination of the Niger Volume I;
36 Lander's Discovery of the Termination of the Niger Volume II;
37 Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth;
43 Sketches from Venetian History Volume I;
44 Sketches from Venetian History Volume II;
46 Thatcher's Indian Biography Volume II;
48 History of British India Volume II;
53 Progress of Discovery on the more Northern Coasts of America;
54 Travels and Researches of Von Humboldt;
57 Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature;
58 John Abercrombie: The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings;*
59 On the Improvement of Society by the Diffusion of Knowledge;
60 The History of Charlemagne;
61 History of Nubia and Abyssinia;
64 James Montgomery: Lectures on General Literature, Poetry, etc;
66 (Allan Cunningham) Lives of Eminent Painters Volume IV;
67 Lives of Eminent Painters Volume V;
71 Andrew Combe: The principles of physiology applied to the preservation of health and to the improvement of physical and mental education
72 Turner's Sacred History of the World;
73 Luigi Sforzosi. Greene, Nathaniel [1797 - 1877]. – Translator: A Compendious History of Italy
106 Richard Henry Dana Jr. Two Years Before the Mast (1840);
112 Hallec's British Poets Volume 1;
155 History of the Expedition of Lewis and Clarke Volume

Literatur

Robert S. Freeman: “Harper and Brothers Family and School District Libraries, 1830–1846”, in: Libraries to the People: Histories of Outreach, herausgegeben von Robert S. Freeman, David M. Hovde (2003)
Joseph Henry Harper: The House of Harper: A Century of Publishing in Franklin Square. Harper & brothers, 1912

Weblinks

Fotos

Einzelnachweise

rbscp.lib.rochester.edu
Robert S. Freeman, S. 27
Joseph Jacobs, S. J. Levinson, in JE)
Harper & Brothers Records, 1817-1929
vgl. sequiturbooks.com (Fotos)

Harper’s Family Library (Alternativbezeichnungen des Lemmas)
Harper's Family Library; Family Library; Harper's Familienbibliothek; Harpers Familienbibliothek

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. The authors of the article are listed here. Additional terms may apply for the media files, click on images to show image meta data.

[1] rbscp.lib.rochester.edu

[2] Robert S. Freeman, S. 27

[3] Joseph Jacobs, S. J. Levinson, in JE)

[4] Harper & Brothers Records, 1817-1929

[5] vgl. sequiturbooks.com (Fotos)