Rudolph ackermann biography

Rudolph Ackermann, born in Saxony; to London 1787; 1792, set up in business as a coachmaker at 7 Little Russell Street, Covent Garden, having already published the first of many books of carriage designs; 1796, moved to 96 Strand where he ran a drawing school for ten years, publishing drawing books; 1797, to 101 Strand.
Rudolph Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman.
Ackermann was born in Saxony and apprenticed to his father as a coach-builder.

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Katherine D. Harris, “The Legacy of Rudolph Ackermann and Nineteenth-Century British Literary Annuals”

[M]ay all mothers, who would so be shocked, be dom’d! As if mothers were such sort of logicians as to infer the future hanging of their child from the theoretical hangibility . . . of every infant. . . . [M]y whole heart is faint, and my whole head is sick (how is it?) at this damned, canting unmasculine unbawdy (I had almost said) age!
—Charles Lamb, Letter 474 (1829; emphasis added)

By November 1822, the British reading public had already voraciously consumed both Walter Scott’s expensive novels and Rudolf Ackermann’s exquisite lithographs. The next decade, referred to by some scholars as dormant and unproductive, is in fact bursting with Forget Me Nots, Friendship’s Offerings, Keepsakes, and Literary Souvenirs.

The literary annual—with its poetry, short stories, dramatic scenes, sheet music, travel accounts, political statements, historical renderings, classical references, descriptions of Europe, war accounts, artwork, portraits, lavish binding

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Rudolph Ackermann

German-born British publisher (1764–1834)

Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Stollberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London)^[1] was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman.

Biography

He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means,^[2] and he therefore became a saddler like his father.

He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, moved from Dresden to Basel and Paris, and then, 23 years old, settled in London. He established himself in Long Acre, the centre of coach-making in London and close to the market at Covent Garden. His extraordinary business instinct, as well as his flair for design and talent for self-promotion, won him the £200 contract to design the ceremonial coach for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare. After this he designed The Royal Sailor, an 8-wheel omnibus that ran between Charing Cross, Greenwich and

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by Margaret Culbertson

Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells us about a great chronicler of technology and art. The University of Houston, presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

We find a time capsule from early 19th century England in an illustrated magazine produced by a German-born carriage designer. Like architecture or automobile design today, carriage design required proficiency in art as well as technology. It also could lead to great rewards, when royalty or the nobility commissioned custom carriages. Rudolph Ackermann excelled in the field after he moved to England, around 1784. But his career path veered dramatically seven years later, when he prepared a book of his carriage designs. He became fascinated with the making of books. Within three years he'd transformed himself into a publisher.

With his background in design, Ackermann naturally gravitated to illustrated books. He produced technical and artistic works and commissioned many artists to create illustrat