Friedrich Christoph Perthes

In Hamburg, where he settled in 1793 as an assistant to the bookseller Benjamin Gottlob Hoffmann, he started in 1796 a book selling business of his own, and in 1798 he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Johann Heinrich Besser (1775–1826).

By his marriage in 1797 with a daughter of the poet, Matthias Claudius, he was brought into intimate relation with a group of Protestant writers, who exercised a powerful influence on the growth of his religious opinions.

In 1821, his wife having died, he left Hamburg, transferring his business at Jungfernstieg to his partner, and went to Gotha, where he established what ultimately became one of the first publishing houses in Germany.

When the foundation-stone of the fine building of the Union was laid in 1834, Perthes was made an honorary freeman of the city of Leipzig, and in 1840 the university of Kiel conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy.

[1] His Life was written by his son, Klemens Theodor Perthes (1809–1867), professor of law in the university of Bonn, and author of Das deutsche Staatsleben vor der Revolution (Hamburg and Gotha, 1845), and Das Herbergewesen der Handwerksgesellen (Gotha, 1856, and again 1883), whose son Hermann Friedrich Perthes (1840–1883) was the founder of the Fridericianum at Davos Platz.