JOHANN GEORG COTTA (I) (1631-1692), the founder of the publishing house of J. G. Cotta, married in 1659 the widow of the university bookseller, Philipp Braun, in Tubingen, and took over the management of his business, thus establishing the firm which was subsequently associated with Cotta's name. On his death, in 1692, the undertaking passed to his only son, Johann Georg (2) ; and on his death in 1712, to the latter's eldest son, also named Johann Georg (3), while the second son, Johann Friedrich (see below), became the distinguished theologian.
Although the eldest son of-Johann Georg (3), Christoph Fried rich Cotta (173o-1807), established a printing-house to the court at Stuttgart, the business languished, and it was reserved to his youngest son, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, FREIHERR COTTA VON COTTEN DORF who was born at Stuttgart on April 27, to restore the fortunes of the firm. He entered the university of TUbingen and after graduating spent a considerable time in Paris. In December 1787 he took over the publishing business and in 1794 the Allgemeine Zeitung, of which Schiller was to be editor, was planned. Schiller was compelled to withdraw on ac count of his health, but his friendship with Cotta deepened every year. In 1795 Schiller and Cotta founded the Horen, a periodical very important to the student of German literature. The Horen brought Goethe and Schiller into intimate relations with each other and with Cotta; and Goethe, while regretting that he had already promised Wilhelm Meister to another publisher, contrib uted the Unterhaltung deutscher Ausgewanderten, the Roman El egies and a paper on "Literary Sansculottism." Fichte sent essays from the first, and the other brilliant German authors of the time were also represented. In 1798 the Allgemeine Zeitung appeared at Tubingen, being edited first by Posselt and then by Huber. Soon the editorial office of the newspaper was transferred to Stuttgart, in 1803 to Ulm and in 1810 to Augsburg; it is now in Munich. In 1799 Cotta was sent to Paris by the Wurttemberg estates as their representative. Here he made friendships which proved very advantageous for the Allgemeine Zeitung. In 18o1 he paid another visit to Paris, also in a political capacity, when he carefully studied Napoleon's policy.
In 1810 he removed to Stuttgart; and from that time till his death he was loaded with honours. State affairs and an honour able commission from the German booksellers took him to the Vienna Congress; and in 1815 he was deputy-elect at the Wurt temberg diet. In 1819 he became representative of the nobility; then he succeeded to the offices of member of committee and (1824) vice-president of the second chamber. In 1828-29 appeared the famous correspondence between Schiller and Goethe. In ad dition to his standing as a publisher, Cotta was a scientific agri culturist and promoted many reforms in farming. He was the first Wurttemberg landholder to abolish serfdom on his estates. In politics he was throughout his life a moderate Liberal. In 1824 he set up a steam printing press in Augsburg, and, about the same time, founded a literary institute at Munich. In 1825 he started steamboats on Lake Constance, and introduced them in the following year on the Rhine. In 1828 he was sent to Berlin by Bavaria and Wurttemberg. He died on Dec. 29, 1832.
His son, JOHANN GEORG (4), FREIHERR COTTA VON COTTEN DORF (1796-1863) greatly extended the connections of the firm by purchase, in 1839, of the publishing business of G. J. Goschen in Leipzig, and in 1845 of that of Vogel in Landshut; while, in 1845, "Bible" branches were established at Stuttgart and Mu nich. He was succeeded by his younger son, Karl, and by his nephew, Hermann Albert von Reischach. Under their joint part nership, the before-mentioned firms in Leipzig and Landshut and an artistic establishment in Munich passed into other hands, leav ing, on the death of Herman Albert von Reischach in 1876, Karl von Cotta the sole representative of the firm until his death in 1888. In 1889 the firm of J. G. Cotta passed by purchase into the hands of Adolf and Paul Kroner, and in 1899 the business was converted into a limited liability company.
See Albert Schaffle, Cotta (1895) ; Verlags-Katalog der J. G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, Nachfolger (19oo) ; Lord Goschen's Life and Times of G. J. Goschen (1903) ; Briefe an Cotta: Das Zeitalter Goethes and Napoleons, 1794-1815 edited by Maria Fehling (1925).