Justus Perthes
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Johan Georg Justus Perthes (September 11, 1749 - May 2, 1816), wa a German publisher and founder of the firm that bears his name (Justus Perthes).
He was born in Rudolstadt. In 1785 he founded the Justus Perthes publishing firm in Gotha. In this, he was joined in 1814 by his son Wilhelm Perthes (1793-1853), who had been in the establishment of Justus's nephew, Friedrich Christoph Perthes, at Hamburg. On Justus's death, Wilhelm took over the firm and laid the foundation of the geographical branch of the business, for which it is chiefly famous, by publishing the Hand-atlas (1817-1823) of Adolf Stieler (1775-1836, see: Stielers Handatlas).
Wilhelm Perthes engaged the collaboration of the most eminent German geographers of the time, including Stieler, Heinrich Berghaus (1797-1884), Christian Gottlieb Reichard (1758-1837), who was associated with Stieler in the compilation of the atlas, Karl Spruner (1803-1892), and Emil von Sydow (1812-1873).
The business passed to his son Bernard Wilhelm Perthes (1821 - 1857), who was associated with August Petermann (under whose direction the well-known perodical Petermanns Mitteilungen was founded) and Bruno Hassenstein (1839-1902); and subsequently (1857) to his son Bernard. In 1863 the firm first issued the Almanach de Gotha, a statistical, historical and genealogical annual (in French) of the various countries of the world; and in 1866 the elaborate Geographisches Jahrbuch was produced under the editorship of Ernst Behm (1830-1884), on whose death it was continued under that of Professor Hermann Wagner.