After 1874, changes were made to editorial policies, and the journal published only completed research; later on, in the 20th century, its focus was narrowed to only print articles on organic chemistry, though it had always placed emphasis on the field.

Among these were Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff's discovery of caesium and its later isolation by Carl Setterberg,[2] Adolf Windaus' studies on the constitution of cholesterol and vitamins for which he was awarded the 1928 Nobel prize in Chemistry,[3] and many of Georg Wittig's publications, including the preparation of phenyllithium.

[6] One example of a news item published in the Annalen was the discovery of ether as it is used in surgical anesthesia by Henry Jacob Bigelow,[7] which Liebig had been informed of through a letter from Edward Everett.

[10] These criticisms were later described by chemist and historian J. R. Partington in his series A History of Chemistry:[11] As editor of the Annalen, Liebig criticised others freely, and sometimes showed poor judgment, e.g. in his violent attack on a factual paper on hydrogen persulphide by Thenard.

[12]Similarly, on Liebig and Hermann Kolbe, a contemporary organic chemist of similar reputation, J. P. Phillips of the University of Louisville Department of Chemistry wrote "...that the polemical outbursts for which Liebig and Kolbe were famous were not mere episodes in low comedy but a reasonably consistent defense of the conservative position that organic theory must develop from experiment alone.

[14] In 1834, the Neues Journal der Pharmazie fur Arzte, Apotheker und Chemiker was merged with the Annalen, resulting in a brief period wherein there were 4 editors: Liebig, Brandes, Geiger, and Johann Trommsdorff.

[6][17] In 1837, Liebig left Germany for Britain to meet with the British Association for the Advancement of Science and to market his work,[18] and around that time met with Thomas Graham and Jean-Baptiste Dumas.

Publications in the during- and post-war period were fewer in number and had poor paper quality due to shortages, and printing moved from Heidelberg to Munich in 1945 and to Weinheim by 1947.