In 1802 Charles Henri Reclam (1776–1844), whose family originated from
Savoy, had moved to Leipzig where he established a bookselling business. His son Anton Philipp completed his apprenticeship as a book printer and bookseller and borrowed money to purchase the
Literarisches Museum, a lending library in
Leipzig-Mitte,
Grimmaische Strasse. During the
Restoration period and under the terms of the
Carlsbad Decrees, it quickly evolved to a centre of intellectual and literary circles of the pre-revolutionary
Vormärz era. On 1 October 1828 Anton Philipp Reclam founded his own publishing house, first named
Verlag des literarischen Museums. When he sold the library in 1837, the company was renamed
Philipp Reclam jun. Two years later, he also acquired a Leipzig printing workshop and he was then able to produce his books in large numbers. However, the liberal leaning tone of his publications earned him a sales ban in the countries of the
Austrian Empire and a prison sentence by a Leipzig court for publishing a German translation of Thomas Paine's
The Age of Reason (
Das Zeitalter der Vernunft). After the failed
German revolutions of 1848–49, Reclam changed his policies and concentrated on the mass distribution of literary classics. From 1858 to 1865 he published the complete works of
William Shakespeare. In 1856 the
German Confederation passed a law giving 30 years copyright protection to the works of all authors who had died before 9 November 1837. From 9 November 1867, when all these rights ended, Reclam was able to publish
German Enlightenment authors like
Goethe,
Schiller,
Lessing and many others, without needing to pay any royalties, and thus sell them for lower prices. The first title of the
Universal-Bibliothek series, Goethe's
Faust I, was published on 10 November 1867. The
Universal-Bibliothek enabled a wide range of literary texts to be made widely available, contributing significantly to popular education and the promotion of European classical literature. During
Nazi rule in Germany, Reclam was forbidden to publish books by Jewish authors, including
Heinrich Heine and
Ferdinand Lassalle, and works of 'politically unreliable' writers like Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, and Franz Werfel. In an
allied bombing raid on Leipzig in
World War II on 4 December 1943, its building was severely damaged and 450 tons of books were destroyed. After the
partition of Germany in the aftermath of the war, the publishing house was divided after its owner, Ernst Reclam, was partially dispossessed in Leipzig, then part of the
Soviet occupation zone. In September 1947, Reclam established a subsidiary in
Stuttgart in the
American occupation zone (later part of
West Germany), which finally became the new main office in 1950. The original publishing house in Leipzig remained, but was
nationalized by the socialist regime of
East Germany. Both the West and the East German businesses continued to publish affordable paperback books. Reclam in Stuttgart introduced distinctive yellow covers for its
Universal-Bibliothek series of German classics in 1970. The museum has over 10,000 volumes of historic books published by the company and related ephemera, including the autographs of
Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann and one of the firm's book vending machines. The collection was put together over a period of more than 50 years by Hans-Jochen Marquardt, the director of the museum, who began collecting the material when he was 14 years old. His father, , was the director of the East German Reclam business from 1961 to 1986. ==Publishing programme==