The Tauchnitz Edition and Related Paperback Series: English Literature in Your Pocket

The Tauchnitz Edition and Related Paperback Series: English Literature in Your Pocket unites a broad variety of interests and different perspectives concerning the legacy of the Tauchnitz Edition in particular and English language paperback series in general. It provides an international and interdisciplinary approach to the ’paperback revolution’ as part of media culture throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The Bernhard Tauchnitz’ Collection of British and American Authors, initiated in 1841, was not only a successful entrepreneurial endeavor but a milestone in the history of print culture as well. The Leipzig-based Tauchnitz publishers, renowned all over the world for their series of affordable pocket books in English, produced more than 5000 volumes within the course of over 100 years. Cultural and literary repercussions of this unique achievement have been far-reaching since the late 19th century. It pioneered a new way of mass-market publishing, innovative copyright arrangements and a close cooperation with many important English-language novelists of the day. Still in present times, the Tauchnitz Edition and its successors are stimulating both academic research in various fields and the enthusiasm of collectors and readers.

Melanie Mienert worked as lecturer and research assistant in the field of book studies at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University, Germany. Her dissertation project deals with the topic ＂The publishing house Walter de Gruyter 1923 to 1967＂. In addition to her doctorate, she worked at a non-fiction publishing house in the field of marketing, public relations and sales for three years. Since November 2017 Melanie Mienert is one of the two coordinators of the Leibniz Science Campus ＂Eastern Europe-Global Area＂ (EEGA) at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig.

Stefan Welz is Associate Professor of English Literature and Modern English Literatures at Leipzig University, Germany. His research focuses on Victorianism and Modernism, literary translation, travel literature, the Tauchnitz Edition of British and American Authors, and human-animal relations in literature.

Dietmar Böhnke is Senior Lecturer in British Cultural Studies at Leipzig University, Germany. His research interests include Scottish literature and culture, especially of the present; the Victorian Age and its contemporary rewritings; book history (esp. Tauchnitz); and the British media, especially film. He has published various articles on these topics, as well as two books on contemporary Scottish authors: James Kelman (Berlin 1999) and Alasdair Gray (Berlin 2004). Most recently, he co-authored a book on the nineteenth-century publisher Bernhard Tauchnitz (Leipzig 2017).