---

8 translated pages

---

Chapter 1 Page 1







First

Fundamental Law

of the newly established

German

Booksellers’ Association

---

Chapter 1 Page 2

[empty page]

---

Chapter 1 Page 3

            In view of the fact that since long ago many troublesome abuses have been emerging in the
bookselling-trade, and that these have spread about – not so much furtively as, on the contrary, with
a certain audacious shamelessness – to such an extent that various unscrupulous persons now reprint
books which aren’t their property at all, merely out of an infamous greed for profit, and offer them
for sale at public book fairs, as well as sometimes even having the insolence to threaten further
reprinting; now charge one colleague in the business a lower price, and the other a higher price,
for those books that do belong to them as rightful proprietors, thereby violating all established
notions of loyalty and good faith, and causing many an innocent bookseller to be greatly maligned as
a result of the disparity [in prices] that customers will thus inevitably find between the catalogue
of one book-shop and that of another nearby; and, finally, act so unbecomingly with regard to their
profession that, although they pose as booksellers at the public fairs and are eager to enjoy the
advantages associated with the collegial exchange of books that are so peculiar to the bookselling-
trade, outside of these fairs they not only ignore the prices that had been agreed at the fairs,
but even sell off these books [the ones other booksellers had given them in exchange for books they
had published] for a mere trifle, often giving away the finest works, which they had surreptitiously
acquired thanks to the deceptively high prices of their own publications, for a price that doesn’t
even come to half their true value; and, furthermore, in view of the fact that all these insolent
encroachments, deceptions, and sleights of hand, as well as others not mentioned here, are aimed at
and really do lead to the manifest ruin and discredit of the once so highly esteemed bookselling-
trade, all the more so, given that at the fairs which have been held so far, the matter has always
been left with one bookseller privately complaining to another about this or that offence, but
without leading to any speedy and effective remedies against these offences by means of co-operative
conventions, discussions, and measures agreed on jointly: in view of all this, we think that it is
high time that all honourable booksellers (both those who have their own publishing house and those
who are just retail traders), who are enemies to deceit and chicanery, come together in a generally
beneficent [non-profit making] association and begin to offer one another their mutual help in
promoting their joint welfare. To which effect we, the undersigned, hereby duly invite and urge
every righteously minded person to henceforward make known their accession to this association by
adding their own signature [to this document].

---

Chapter 1 Page 4

The proposed Booksellers’ Association will therefore be based
1)
            On a free and voluntary accession of all those who wish to join it, without any preferential
treatment whatsoever for native booksellers over those from abroad, and vice versa. The non-coercive
nature of this association is guaranteed all the more by the fact that every future enactment and
execution of this or that measure which has been deemed necessary will, on every such occasion,
require a new declaration of consent by its members, which they may in any case make either in
person, or through any compatriots of theirs whom they have given a written power of attorney to
act on their behalf. However, anyone who intends to represent one or various individual traders,
or the booksellers of a whole city, or even of a whole province, and in this capacity wishes his
vote to be recognised as valid, must be invested with a special power of attorney bearing the personal
signature of every member of the Booksellers’ Association he seeks to represent.


2)

            Since it is impossible to report on the needs of the Association, and likewise to arrange
for useful discussions as to how these may be satisfied, without a more general conference at a
specific day, time, and place, the undersigned suggest for this purpose the first Wednesday always
after the inauguration of the Easter and Michaelmas book fairs, and namely from three o’clock in the
afternoon onwards, on the first floor of Mr Erkel’s house, whereupon the day of the second convention,
to be held towards the end of the fair, can also be concerted and fixed.


3)

            The Association will annually elect a Secretary who is to hold power of attorney and reside
in Leipzig. His functions shall include, above all, attending to the best interests of the Association
all the year round; receiving and replying to any letters that may arrive for the Association; taking
upon himself and calculating small expenses incurred as a result of the Association’s activities
outside of the book fairs; if need be, reporting matters that concern the Association to the
representatives elected in various provinces; reading out the reports at general conferences; collecting
and noting down the opinions of MESSRS the Members, and accurately but concisely recording the result
or close of each consultative meeting in the special diary of the Booksellers’ Association.


4)

            The Association has, moreover, as its main aim precisely the notion of "Suum cuique"
[To each his own] – this first foundation pillar of both natural right and civil law – and is therefore
not at all intent on causing anyone /

---

Chapter 1 Page 5

harm or losses – on the contrary, it seeks to uphold and secure the bookselling-trade in general,
and the property of every one of its members in particular. For this very reason,


5)

            All members of the Association pledge themselves on the strength of their personal
signatures and swear upon their honour, loyalty, good faith, and conscience, that as soon as they
get the slightest reliable piece of information on a reprinter in their area who has reprinted,
say, a book published by one or other of the Association’s members, or if they otherwise come to
know that someone or other has, to the detriment of the bookselling-trade, fraudulently embellished
an old, already published book with a new title, or that, to the disgrace of our business, some
charlatan bookseller at a public fair is hawking, peddling, and selling dirt-cheap an assortment
of books which he had previously acquired in exchange [from another bookseller], or, finally,
that some trader at the fairs is charging either two different prices [for the same book] or a
grossly and dishonestly excessive price; that in such a case, all the MESSRS Members shall be
prepared to immediately report any such adverse facts to the current Secretary in Leipzig, whereupon
the latter shall not fail to give an account of the reported case at the earliest forthcoming
opportunity during the first conference of the Association to be held at the next book fair, and
the members will consider what measures are to be taken, since


6)

            If in future, after this Easter fair of 1765 has closed, any pirate reprints should take
place, all members of this Association who have sufficient courage to vigorously work against the
piracy of books, and whom no reprinter will be able to do without [i.e. since sooner or later he
would have to turn to one of these members’ bookshops in order to sell his pirate copies], hereby
pledge themselves in writing that not only will they not accept a single page of any pirate edition
of a book that belongs to a member of the Association – any such pirate edition being condemned
to everlasting disgrace in the Association’s diary – but that they will also, on the one hand,
suspend any business dealings with the dishonourable reprinter in question, with regard to the
collegial exchange of publications and arrangements for credit; and, on the other hand, force him
to buy in cash those publications that he most wants from them and likewise pay him only in cash
for those books which they wish to acquire from him [instead of swapping their stock as was the
normal practice at book fairs], until this reprinter has given sufficient satisfaction to the
member of the Association whose property he had encroached upon; for which purpose


7)

            All the presently registered members of this Association, as well as those who may join
it in future, mutually guarantee their publications against reprinting of any kind to one another,
in such a manner that they will all stand security for one, and one /

---

Chapter 1 Page 6

will for all, and will even, if need be, go as far as to reprint themselves, by way of revenge, the
finest book that the reprinter may have in his publishing catalogue and charge it to his account in
the name of the Association. Similarly,


8)

            Against [second-hand book] stall-keepers, hawkers, and undersellers, such effective measures
will, from time to time, be agreed upon and actually enforced, as are called for by the honour of the
bookselling-trade which such practices bring into disrepute, and which it is the duty of the members
of the Association to uphold. Likewise,


9)

            Against those who, during book fairs, charge either two different prices for the same book
or a price that is fraudulently excessive, the necessary course of action will be decided upon and
taken at the respective conferences to be held at each fair, following, in particular, the advice of
experienced and well-informed [business] correspondents. However, as far as


10)

            Those sneaking booksellers are concerned, whom one doesn’t get to see at the fairs, but
who nevertheless try to advertise the books they’ve published by means of the Leipzig Fair Catalogue,
the publisher of the latter has given the assurance in advance that he will make sure that, apart
from the works brought out by the already known book publishers and sellers, no publications
whatsoever which have been carried out by complete strangers will be included in the Fair Catalogue,
until the members of the Association have been able to obtain more detailed information about these
books.
            Finally, the above provisional points, which were drawn up mainly with the establishment
of the Association in mind, have been recognised as binding by the following members of the Association
who have put their signatures to this document in no specific order of precedence [i.e. simply in
alphabetical order] and without prejudice to any of them, and who have, furthermore, adopted them
as the very first Fundamental Law of the Association. Done at the Leipzig Easter Fair, 1765.


                  Albrecht Friedrich Bartholomäi, of Ulm.
                  Johann Carl Bohn, of Hamburg.
                  Johann Christian Brandt, of Hamburg.
                  Anton Gottfried Braun, of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder.
                  Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf & Son, in Leipzig.
                  Johann Rudolph Cröker’s Widow, of Jena.

---

Chapter 1 Page 7

                  Christian Heinrich Cuno, of Jena.
                  Johann Gottfried Dyck’s Widow, in Leipzig.
                  Caspar Fritsch, in Leipzig.
                  Carl Felßecker, of Nuremberg.
                  Nathanael Sigismund Frommann, of Züllichau.
                  George Ludwig Förster, of Bremen.
                  Johann Michael Gampert, of Breslau.
                  Johann Justinus Gebauer, Sen., of Halle.
                  Christian Gottlieb Gebler, in the Bookshop of the Ducal Orphanage of Brunswick
                  Johann Nicolaus Gerlach & Son, of Dresden.
                  Johann Friedrich Gleditsch’s Bookshop, in Leipzig.
                  Christian Friedrich Günther, of Glogau.
                  Johann Wilhelm Hartung, of Jena.
                  Haude & Spener, of Berlin.
                  Johann Samuel Heinsius, in Leipzig.
                  Christian Friedrich Helwing, a.k.a. Meyer’s Bookshop, of Lemgo.
                  Christian Gottlob Hilscher, in Leipzig.
                  Siegmund Heinrich Hoffmann, of Weimar.
                  George Gottlieb Horn, of Breslau.
                  Johann Friedrich Junius, in Leipzig.
                  David Iversen, of Altona.
                  Johann Christian Koppe, of Rostock.
                  Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, of Breslau.
                  Carl Christian Kümmel, of Halle.
                  Johann Christoph Meyer, of Brunswick.
                  Johann Ernst Meyer, of Breslau.
                  Franz Christian Mummen’s Widow, of Copenhagen.
                  August Mylius, of Berlin.
                  Orell, Geßner & Co., of Zurich.
                  Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, of Nuremberg.
                  Renger’s Bookshop, of Halle.
                  Paul Emanuel Richter, of Altenburg.
                  Johann Heinrich Rüdiger, of Berlin.
                  Chr. Fr. Stahlbaum, in the Bookshop of the Royal "Realschule" of Berlin
                  Johann Wilhelm Schmid, of Hanover.
                  Jonas Schmidt & Donatius, of Lübeck.
                  Christoph Seidel & Johann Ernst Scheidhauer, of Magdeburg.
                  August Lebrecht Stettin, of Ulm.
                  Johann Christoph Stößel, of Chemnitz.

---

Chapter 1 Page 8

                  A. Vandenhoeck’s Widow, of Göttingen.
                  Christian Friedrich Voß, of Berlin.
                  George Conrad Walther, of Dresden.
                  Weidmann’s Heirs & Reich, in Leipzig.
                  Johann Friedrich Weygand, of Helmstädt.
                  J. M. Witte, Inspector of the Halle Orphanage’s Bookshop
                  Samuel G. Zimmermann’s Widow, of Wittenberg.



            Given the great number of business activities that have to be attended to at this fair and the
lack of time, it has not been possible to show the present FIRST FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THE NEWLY
ESTABLISHED BOOKSELLERS' ASSOCIATION OF GERMANY to all the representatives of the bookselling-trade who
have gathered here in Leipzig, even less so to send it round to those booksellers who do not have stalls
at the fair this Easter; but all these are kindly requested not to feel offended or to interpret it
wrongly, but rather to get in touch with this year’s Secretary:

or with the respective attorneys for each province who are listed below, if they would like to be
admitted into this Association.


            The attorneys for this year are:



Translation by: Luis Sundkvist