Jan Otto
- Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
- Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
- You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is
Content in this edit is translated from the existing Czech Wikipedia article at [[:cs:Jan Otto]]; see its history for attribution.
- You may also add the template
{{Translated|cs|Jan Otto}}
to the talk page. - For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
Jan Otto | |
---|---|
![]() Jan Otto (1907) | |
Born | (1841-11-08)November 8, 1841 Přibyslav |
Died | May 29, 1916(1916-05-29) (aged 74) Prague |
Nationality | Czech |
Occupation | Publisher |
Known for | Otto's encyclopedia |
Jan Otto (8 November 1841, Přibyslav – 29 May 1916, Prague) was a Czech publisher and bookseller. He is best known for Otto's encyclopedia, the largest encyclopedia published in Czech.
Life and work
He was the son of a country doctor. In 1862 he began working as a printer. In 1871, he took over the printing press from his father-in-law Jaroslav Pospíšil. In 1874 he opened a bookstore on Wenceslaus Square in Prague, but after 1910, he concentrated on publishing. After his death his son and son-in-law took over the company but after lasting troubles, went bankrupt in 1934.
In the 1880s he started to work on publishing a complete encyclopedia in Czech. Despite many difficulties, he began publication 1888. It was an immediate commercial success, and publishing continued twenty years.[1]
In addition to the encyclopedia, he published other successful volumes. Ottova světová knihovna (Otto's world library) and Světová četba (World's reading), containing some 2,000 passages translated into Czech. Laciná knihovna národní was a series of affordable but quality books from Czech authors. He also published collections of several authors, Brehm's Life of Animals, and literary newspapers such as Lumír, Zlatá Praha and Světozor. He was active in social and political life of Prague society. In 1912, he was appointed a member of the Austrian House of Lords.
References
- ^ Winters, Stanley B. (1983). "Jan Otto, T.G. Masaryk, and the Czech National Encyclopedia". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 31 (4): 516–542. ISSN 0021-4019.
Other sources
- Short biography (in Czech)
- History of Otto's encyclopedia (in Czech) (PDF)
- Overview of 19/20th century Czech publishers (in Czech)
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Works by or about Jan Otto at the Internet Archive