Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Leypoldt, Frederick

LEYPOLDT, Frederick, bibliographer, b. in Stuttgart, Germany, 17 Nov., 1835; d. in New York city, 31 March, 1884. He had an early liking for the drama and books, and when a boy wrote a play, which he offered unsuccessfully to German managers. He left school in 1851, and in 1854, making his way to the United States, entered the service of a bookseller in New York. In 1859 he established himself in business, opening a bookstore and reading-room in Philadelphia, and in 1863 he began to publish, first translations of foreign books, and afterward foreign text-books with English notes. In January, 1866, with Henry Holt, he established the firm of Leypoldt and Holt; but in 1868, though the firm-name continued much longer, he determined to devote himself personally to bibliographical work. The monthly “Literary Bulletin,” his first periodical, which he established in 1868, became in 1870 the “Trade Circular”; in January, 1872, it absorbed George W. Childs's “Publishers' Circular,” and was issued weekly, and in 1873 it became the “Publishers' Weekly.” Mr. Leypoldt published an “American Catalogue” for 1869, and in 1876 he began work on the American catalogue proper, which was completed in 1880. His “Publishers' Uniform Trade-List Annual” was begun in 1873, the “Literary News” in 1875, the “Library Journal” in 1876, and the “Index Medicus,” a monthly medical bibliography, in 1880. He was among the founders of the American book-trade union in 1875, and of the American library association in 1876. Under the anagram of “F. Pylodet” he edited a successful series of French text-books, and he wrote also some German verse and some translations into German.