History
The history of the publishing house begins on March 26th, 1783, with the grant of a bookselling permit
to Johann Moesle. Moesle's successor and later namesake of the company,
Wilhelm Braumueller, was born in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar in 1807. After completing his apprenticeship
with a bookseller in Eisenach, Braumueller took over a publishing and retail bookselling company together
with Ludwig Wilhelm Seidel. In 1835, Wilhelm Braumueller joined the bookshop by then owned by Moesle's widow.
Having obtained his bookselling permit in 1840, he took over the company under the name of "Braumueller
& Seidel". In 1859, the newly founded Academy of Science appointed Wilhelm Braumueller, by then separated
from Seidel, as their exclusive bookseller.
The company remained with the family Braumueller until 1915, when it was sold to the
Jasper
printing company due to financial difficulties in the wake of World War I. With the associates
Friedrich Jasper and Alfred Leithe-Jasper, the company went to the family of today's proprietor, Konstanze Borovansky, who has been with the company since 2002 as general manager. The publishing house is currently being directed by
the fifth generation of the Jasper family.
Among the best-known publications from Braumueller's history are medical publications (Vienna School
of Medicine with Hyrtl, Schnitzler, Rokitansky, Zuckerkandl and others), Otto Weininger's controversial
work
Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character
, originally published in 1903 and reinvestigated in the 2005 collection
Mehr oder Weininger
) as well as Oswald Spengler's
Untergang des Abendlandes
(Decline of the West,
1918). In school books, literary history has been synonymous with
The Pochlatko
for generations of Austrian high school students. Titled
Abriss der deutschsprachigen Literatur (Compendium of German-language Literature)
it is still a standard work today. A brand-new edition, called
Literatur entdecken (Discovering Literature)
by Manfred Mittermayer and Fritz Popp, has appeared in 2006.
Braumueller today
"Wissen und Bildung" ("Knowledge and Education") is our motto; science and school books are the two
pillars upon which the publishing house rests. As an independent privately owned publisher Braumueller
specialises in publishing academic work from the fields of philosophy, literature, theatre, politics,
history, law, communication, sociology etc. Beside the traditional focus on minority issues, we produce
significant books for social discourse in general.
Essential conceptional and innovative work is being done in the area of developing school books. At
the moment, Braumueller's school book programme consists of more than 60 works officially approved for
school use, for the most part targeted at secondary and vocational schools, and mainly concentrated on
art, German / German literature, psychology, English, Italian and Latin. The new series of Latin textbooks, Latein
in unserer Zeit (Latin in our Times), is especially of interest.
The publishing house puts great importance by the personal support of its editors and authors, who find
open ears and minds for all their new ideas and concepts. Personalities like Anton Pelinka, Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler,
Theodor Tomandl, Karl Korinek, Clemens Jabloner and many more are among Braumueller's scientific editors
and authors. Prominent school book authors include Wilhelm Dabringer, Edith Konecny, Guenter Lachawitz,
Maria-Luise Leitner, Konrad Liessmann and Ernst Nowotny.
One of Braumueller's special concerns is to offer young authors a platform for the publication of high-quality
work and thereby contribute to future academic research and writing.
From 2009 onwards, the Braumueller publishing company has further expanded its range to include high-quality general interest books under the label "Lesethek", as well as fiction with "Braumueller Literaturverlag".
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