Adolf Asher

Adolphus Asher (1800–1853), often referred to as Adolf Asher, was a German bookseller, publisher, bibliographer, Hebraist, and Anglophile. He is remembered as a major contributor to the British Museum's Russian and Eastern European book collections and for his learned bibliographies which are still consulted today. In 1824 he married Anna, née Friedeberg (1806–1866) and in 1827 they had a son, Georg Michael. and it later extended its activities into book publishing.

Asher befriended Anthony Panizzi, a librarian (and later the principal librarian) at the British Museum Library, and from 1840 became one of the main suppliers of continental and antiquarian books to that library, in the process building up its Russian and eastern European collections, which until that time had been "almost non-existent". and to the Hebrew collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

In 1839 Asher published the first of a series of scholarly annotated bibliographical essays on various subjects, essays which have continued to be consulted by scholars and booksellers to this day. For a time he was a member of the board of the Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin (English, "Jewish Community of Berlin").

A. Asher & Co., of Berlin and London, invoice letterhead, circa 1848

In 1848

For several decades Asher was periodically quoted and his opinions discussed in official British enquiries into copyright, the book trade and international trade.

In 1852 Asher sold his firm A. Asher & Co.

On 2 September 1853, during a business trip to Venice, Asher died of gastric-nervous fever. His widow, Anna Asher, died on 20 November 1866. His son, Georg Michael Asher, had a varied career in Russia, Germany, England and France, becoming a professor of Roman law in Heidelberg, and died in 1905. Although declining to join the booktrade, he followed his bibliographer father by penning A Bibliographical and Historical Essay on the Dutch Books and Pamphlets Relating to New-Netherland, and to the Dutch West-India company and to its Possessions in Brazil, Angola, etc. (1868).

A. Asher & Co. after 1853 After its founder's death A. Asher & Co. continued trading under the ownership of two former employees Daniel Collin and the literary scholar and bibliographer Albert Cohn (1827–1905), In 1874 the firm's ownership was passed to Adolf Behrend and Leonhard Simion. In 1906, the publishing house division of the firm separated from the bookshop division with the former henceforth trading as Behrend & Co. and the latter as A. Asher & Co. After Cohn's death in 1907 resulted in a downturn and after the First World War caused "trade (especially international trade)" to come to a standstill for some years, A. Asher & Co. saw its fortunes revive from 1919 as it was once again "importing and exporting modern books", now from its new premises at Behrenstraße 17, Berlin. and then to Otto Liebstaedter.

Books written by Adolphus Asher Asher's Picture of Berlin and Its Environs Containing a Copious Account of Every Object Worthy of Inspection in the Metropolis of Prussia, in Charlottenburg and Podsdam : to which is added: A List of German Classic Authors and of Their Preeminent Works, Berlin: 1837. Bibliographical Essay on the Collection of Voyages and Travels Edited and Published by Levinus Hulsius and His Successors, at Nuremberg and Francfort from Anno 1598 to 1660, Berlin: 1839. Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Berlin and London: 1840–1841 – Hebrew text, edited and with an English translation, notes and essays by A. Asher – Volume I; Volume II. Bibliographical Essay on the Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Berlin: 1843.

Publications by A. Asher & Co. Book series Asher's Collection of English Authors – British and American Heath's Pictureque Annual (jointly published with other publishers) The Necropolis of Ancon in Peru, a Contribution to our Knowledge of the Culture and Industries of the Empire of the Incas Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten über Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus Tombleson's Rhein-Ansichten Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Schwedischen Südpolar-Expedition 1901–1903

Catalogues Catalogue de la bibliothèque célèbre de M. Ludwig Tieck qui sera vendue à Berlin le 10. décembre 1849 et jours suivants par MM. A. Asher & Comp., Berlin: A. Asher (for London agent David Nutt), 1849. Catalogue d'une collection précieuse de livres rares et curieux concernants la Pologne, la Russie et autres pays slaves, Berlin: chez A. Asher & Co., 1858.

Periodicals Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde