The covers of Bibliotheca Teubneriana Greek texts through the years: Philodemi De ira liber, ed. C. Wilke (Leipzig, 1914); Bacchylidis carmina cum fragmentis, post B. Snell ed. H. Maehler (Leipzig, 1970); Poetae epici graeci, Pars II, Fasc. 1, ed. A. Bernabé (Munich, 2004)

The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise the most thorough modern collection ever published of ancient (and some medieval) Greco-Roman literature. The series, whose full name is the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, consists of critical editions by leading scholars (now always with a full critical apparatus on each page, although during the nineteenth century some editiones minores were published either without critical apparatuses or with abbreviated textual appendices). Today, the only comparable publishing ventures, producing authoritative scholarly reference editions of numerous ancient authors, are the Oxford Classical Texts and the Collection Budé (whose volumes also include facing-page French translations with notes). (The Loeb Classical Library, with facing-page English translations and notes, aims at a more general audience.) Latin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. ... Textual criticism or lower criticism is a branch of philology or bibliography that is concerned with the identification and removal of errors from texts. ... Oxford Classical Texts, or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. ... The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by the Harvard University Press, which present important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each...

History of the Series

In 1811, Benedictus Gotthelf Teubner (1784-1856) refounded in his own name a printing operation he had directed since 1806, the Weinedelsche Buchdruckerei, giving rise to the Leipzig publishing house of B.G. Teubner (its imprint, in Latin, in aedibus B.G. Teubneri). The volumes of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana began to appear in 1849. Although today Teubner editions are relatively expensive (as are European-produced scholarly books in general), they were originally introduced to fill the need, then unmet, for low-priced but high-quality editions. Joyce Rollins is a lesbian. ... 1806 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... [] (Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk) is the largest city in the Federal State (Bundesland) of Saxony in Germany. ... 1849 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

During the period between the end of World War II and German reunification, the publisher split into two firms, one in Lepizig in East Germany, and one in Stuttgart in West Germany. Both continued to issue volumes in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, the use of images on this page may require cleanup, involving adjustment of image placement, formatting, size, or other adjustments. ... The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called East Germany) were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in... GDR redirects here. ... Stuttgart [], a city located in southern Germany, is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg with a population of approximately 590,000 (as of September 2005) in the city and around 3 million in the metropolitan area. ...

In late 1999, the B.G. Teubner Verlag, now based in Wiesbaden, decided to concentrate exclusively on educational publishing for the engineering, mathematics, natural sciences, and computer science markets. All its Classical Studies titles, including the Biblotheca Teubneriana, were taken over by K.G. Saur, a publisher based in Munich and a division of the Thomson Corporation. New volumes continue to appear with the imprint in aedibus K.G. Saur, and the series' name remains unchanged. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Wiesbaden is a city in central Germany. ... Munich (German: München, (pronounced listen) is the capital of the German Federal State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern). ...

Greek Type in Teubner Editions

While the typography of the Greek Teubners has been subject to innovations over the years, an overview of the whole series shows a great deal of consistency. The old-fashioned, cursive font used (with small variations) in most of the existing volumes is instantly recognized by classicists and strongly associated with Teubner. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Original "Teubner" Font

Examples of the original Teubner Greek type, in its older (left: Aeschines, ed. F. Blass, Leipzig, 1895) and newer (Pindari carmina cum fragmentis, post B. Snell ed. H. Maehler, Leipzig, 1969) forms

This type was in regular use at least from the 1870's to the 1970's, for verse and prose texts. In older (e.g., nineteenth-century) Teubners, several old-fashioned features of the type (almost crabbed by the more familiar Porsonian standard) are still found which would later be smoothed away, for example, omega with bent-in ends, medial sigma that is not completely closed, and phi with a bent stem. Richard Porson (December 25, 1759–September 25, 1808), was an English classical scholar. ...

Upright Variant

Example of the upright variant of the original Teubner Greek type: Iamblichi Babyloniacorum reliquiae, ed. E. Habrich, Leipzig, 1960

Teubner used an upright type, designed to match the original cursive type, in some editions. In the example shown, the cursive type is still used in the critical apparatus. In other editions (for example, Aristotelis Athenaion politeia, ed. M. Chambers, Leipzig, 1986), this upright font is used throughout.

Digital Descendants

Examples of more recent variants of the original Teubner Greek type, both italic (top: Euripides, Electra, ed. G. Basta Donzelli, Stuttgart 1995) and upright (center: Aeschyli tragoediae, ed. M.L. West, Stuttgart, 1990; bottom: Poetae epici graeci, Pars II, Fasc. 1, ed. A. Bernabé, Munich, 2004)

Beginning in the 1990's, the digital production of books has been marked by new digital fonts, sometimes based on Teubner's older traditions. In the 1990's, individual editions of Euripides' tragedies were digitally typeset in a font apparently based on the original Teubner cursive. There have also been recent innovations in upright type. One of these, which may be seen in Bernabé's edition of the Orphica, seems likely to be the current standard for new Teubners from K.G. Saur. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... A statue of Euripides Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (c. ... The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau. ...

Griechische Antiqua

Teubner Greek type based on Griechische Antiqua (top: Philodemi De ira liber, ed. C. Wilke, Leipzig, 1914; center: Homeri Odyssea, ed. P. Von der Muehll, Stuttgart, 1962), with a more recent digital descendant (bottom: Homeri Ilias, rec. M.L. West, volumen alterum, Munich, 2000)

Some Teubner Greek editions made a bold typographic departure from the tradition outlined above. E.J. Kenney considered this twentieth-century experiment to be a refreshing break from the Porsonian norm, and emblematic of the best kind of modernist simplicity and directness: Richard Porson (December 25, 1759–September 25, 1808), was an English classical scholar. ...

More recently there has been a welcome and long overdue return to the older and purer models. The pleasing modification of M.E. Pinder's "Griechische Antiqua" used by Teubner in some of their editions represents a lost opportunity, having been regrettably abandoned in favour of the "dull and lumpish" fount (Victor Scholderer's words) that is still the uniform of the series.^[1]

Kenney referred to Bruno Snell's Bacchylides edition of 1934; closely comparable is the Philodemus example illustrated here. A slightly less radical version of this font (notably without lunate sigma) was used in some later Teubner editions (and in non-Teubner publications such as Rahlfs' Septuaginta of 1935), and M.L. West's recent edition of the Iliad uses a digital font that seems closer to this type than to the main Teubner tradition. Alfred Rahlfs (29 May 1865 - 8 April 1935) was born in Linden, near Hannover in Germany. ... Martin Litchfield West (b. ... The Iliad (Ancient Greek , Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of the two principal ancient Greek epic poems. ...

Notes

1. ^ E.J. Kenney, "From script to print," in Greek Scripts: An illustrated introduction, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 2001, p. 69.

External links

• Listing of titles from the publisher, K.G. Saur
• Listing of titles from the U.S. distributer, University of Michigan Press