BEKKER, AUGUST IMMANUEL German philologist and critic. He studied classics at Halle under F. A. Wolf. In 181 o he was appointed professor of philosophy at Berlin. For several years, between 1810 and 1821, he travelled in France, Italy, England and parts of Germany, examining classical manu scripts and gathering materials for his editorial labours. He died at Berlin on June 7, 18 7 1. Some detached fruits of his researches were given in the Anecdota Graeca, 1814-21; but the full result is to be found in the enormous array of classical authors edited by him. His industry extended to nearly the whole of Greek literature, except tragedy and lyric. His best-known editions are : Plato (1816-23), Oratores Attica (1823-24), Aristotle (1831-36), Aris tophanes (1829), and 25 volumes of the Corpus Scriptor?et Historiae Byzantine. The only Latin authors edited by him were Livy (1829-30) and Tacitus (1831). Bekker confined himself to textual recension and criticism, in which he relied solely upon the mss., and contributed little to the extension of general scholarship.
See Sauppe, Zur Erinnerung an Meineke and Bekker (1872) ; Haupt, "Gedachtnisrede auf Meineke and Bekker," in his Opuscula, iii.; E. I. Bekker, "Zur Erinnerung an meinen Vater," in the Preussisches Jahr buch, xxix; Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship, iii. p. 85 ff. 0908).