November 1752 - März 1753

The historical-critical edition of 31 volumes makes accessible the entire surviving correspondence (approx. 5800 letters from the period 1722 to 1766) of a central figure of the German Enlightenment, Johann Christoph Gottsched, and his wife Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, née Kulmus, who was equally active as a collaborator/working partner and author. This edition provides a corpus of sources that provides new insights into important developmental tendencies in the middle of the Enlightenment century, e.g. the final emergence of German as a literary language, the emergence of modern theatre, the development of new forms of periodical press, the formation of a dense network of societies committed to the Enlightenment. Gottsched's correspondents came from a wide variety of intellectual circles and social classes: University professors, Protestant and Catholic clergymen, teachers, actors, Huguenots, aristocrats. The edition offers the complete texts of all letters written by and addressed to Gottsched and his wife. The letters have been extensively annotated. The foreign-language letters have been provided with regests in addition to the text.

Edition page of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig

The editors provide a wide range of additional materials for the volumes. This includes a list of correspondents as well as comprehensive indexes of abbreviations, senders, letters, persons and mentioned writings. The materials, which are constantly updated as new volumes are published, can be downloaded free of charge below.

Die Briefe des 20. Bandes dokumentieren den raschen Ausbau von Gottscheds neu gegründeter Gesellschaft der freyen Künste. Der Streit zwischen Maupertuis und Samuel König gewinnt durch Voltaires Einmischung eine neue Dimension. Dessen Satire gegen Maupertuis fordert auch König Friedrich II. heraus, Gottscheds Briefpartner kommentieren die Ereignisse. Gottscheds Konflikt mit dem Theaterprinzipal Koch offenbart Dilemmata des aufgeklärten Theaters.