Alois Auer Publishes an Extensively Illustrated History of the K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna

In 1851 Viennese printer, linguist and scholar Alois Auer, as director of the K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, published a detailed history of the establishment as Geschichte der K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Wien. Einem typographen dieser Anstalt. In zwei Theilen: I. Geschichte. II. Breschreibung. This work seems to have been issued in at least two different versions. One was issued in German only with a limited number of illustrations. The other, many times longer, was published with parallel texts in German, English, Italian, and French, may have been motivated by Auer's desire to publicize the accomplishments of his establishment at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851. Only the quadrilingual edition was illustrated with 81 plates, each captioned in 4 languages, making it probably the most extensively illustrated book on any industrial printing establishment in the mid-19th century, illustrating virtually every device used in the huge establishment, not only of printing equipment but also equipment for all the illustration techniques. Because this was a national printing facility, unlike other books on printing establishments at this date, this book also illustrated the equipment that the press used to print paper money.