Ludwig Ferdinand Huber

Ludwig Ferdinand Huber (14 September 1764 – 24 December 1804), German author, was born in Paris, the son of Michael Huber (1727–1804), who did much to promote the study of German literature in France.

Ludwig Ferdinand Huber (by Dora Stock).

In his infancy young Huber removed with his parents to Leipzig, where he was carefully instructed in modern languages and literature, and showed a particular inclination for those of France and England. In Leipzig he became intimate with Christian Gottfried Körner, father of the poet Karl Theodor Körner; in Dresden Huber became engaged to Dora Stock, sister of Körner's betrothed, and associated with Schiller, who was one of Körner's stanchest friends.

In 1787 he was appointed secretary to the Saxon legation in Mainz, where he remained until the French occupation of 1792. While here he interested himself for the welfare of the family of his friend Georg Forster, who, favouring republican views, had gone to Paris, leaving his wife Thérèse Forster (1764–1829) and family in destitute circumstances.

Huber, enamoured of the talented young wife, gave up his diplomatic post, broke off his engagement to Dora Stock, removed with the Forster family to Switzerland, and on the death of her husband in 1794 married Thérèse Forster in Bôle. Isabelle de Charriere helped them by paying the translations they made in German of her literary writings (1794-1804), mostly published later in French. In 1798 Huber took over the editorship of the Allgemeine Zeitung in Stuttgart. The newspaper having been prohibited in Württemberg, Huber continued its editorship in Ulm in 1803. He was created "counsellor of education" for the new Bavarian province of Swabia in the following year, but had hardly entered upon the functions of his new office when he died.

Huber was well versed in English literature, and in 1785 he published the drama Ethelwolf, with notes on Beaumont and Fletcher and the old English stage. He also wrote many dramas, comedies and tragedies, most of which are now forgotten, and among them only Das heimliche Gericht (1790, new ed. 1795) enjoyed any degree of popularity. As a critic he is seen to advantage in the Vermischte Schriften von dem Verfasser des heimlichen Gerichts (2 vols, 1793). As a publicist he made his name in the historical-political periodicals Friedenspräliminarien (1794–1796, 10 vols) and Klio (1795–1798, 1819).

Works

• His collected works, Sämtliche Werke seit dem Jahre 1802 (4 vols, 1807-1819), were published with a biography by his wife Thérèse Huber.
• L Speidel and H Wittmann, Bilder aus der Schiller-Zeit (1884).
• Sabine Dorothea Jordan. Ludwig Ferdinand Huber (1764-1804). His Life and Works. (Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik. No.57, 1978) p. 307.
• Sabine D. Jordan. Ludwig Ferdinand Huber. Das grosse Schauspiel. Ausgewaehlte Schriften zur Franzoesischen Revolution. (Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik. No.284, 1994). p. 131.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Huber, Ludwig Ferdinand". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 845–846.