1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Perthes, Johan Georg Justus

PERTHES, JOHAN GEORG JUSTUS (1749–1816), German publisher, was born at Rudolstadt on the 11th of September 1749. In 1785 he founded at Gotha the business which bears his name (Justus Perthes). In this he was joined in 1814 by his son Wilhelm (1793–1853), who had been in the establishment of Justus’ nephew, Friedrich Christoph Perthes, at Hamburg. On the death of Justus at Gotha on the 2nd of May 1816, Wilhelm took entire control of the firm. He 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). Wilhelm Perthes engaged the collaboration of the most eminent German geographers of the time, including Heinrich Berghaus, 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 periodical Petermanns Mitteilungen was founded) and Bruno Hassenstein (1839–1902); and subsequently to his son Bernard (1857–). 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.