This connection to earlier forms of publishing becomes more evident when we look more closely at the publishers and printers of the
Skilling-Magazin and at the local context in which the periodical was published and produced. The
Skilling-Magazin was the result of an unusual partnership between the Swedish-born priest Carl August Guldberg and the allusive Polish refugee Adam Alexander Dzwonkowski. Born in the Swedish border town of Strömstad, Guldberg had grown up in the Norwegian town of Fredrikstad and came to Christiania to study in 1829.
1 J. G. Tanum, ‘Guldberg, Carl August’, in E. Bull et al. (eds), Norsk Biografisk Leksikon (Oslo, 1931). Dzwonkowski came from a Polish noble family and participated in the Polish uprisings against Russia in 1832. He was forced to flee, first to Prussia and then to Copenhagen. To cut a long story short, he ended up in Christiania, where he married the daughter of a French consul and partnered with Guldberg to start a bookshop, publishing house and printing house.
2 According to August Mortensen, Dzwonkowski had originally planned to go to South America after encountering Guldberg in Copenhagen. His ship called at Larvik, where he on Guldberg’s recommendation sought out the local vicar. The vicar convinced him to stay in Norway over the winter, and on 31 October 1834 he arrived in Christiania. Dzwonkowski is on the list of arrivals in Christiania for 31 October in Morgenbladet, 2 November 1834. See A. Mortensen, ‘Boktrykkerkunstens Indførelse i Norge: Kritiske bemerkninger væsentlig paa grundlag av bibliotekar J. C. Tellefsens efterladte manuskripter’, in Mindeskrift i anledning Fabritius’ boktrykkeris 75-aars jubilæum 1844 – 1. januar – 1919 (Kristiania, 1919), pp. 9–26.Guldberg & Dzwonkowski quickly expanded their business, becoming one of the most active printers and publishers in Christiania between 1835 and 1844. Their publishing business had an emphasis on similar content to the
Skilling-Magazin. They published mostly educational literature, schoolbooks, books and periodicals for children, illustrated works and practical guides in addition to some historical, legal and medical literature.
3 Numerous advertisements for the firm can be found in newspapers as well as in Skilling-Magazin, e.g. Tillæg til Skilling-Magazinet no. 4, 24 January 1837. See also H. L. Tveterås, ‘Norsk bokhandel gjennom 100 år’, in C. Just (ed.), N.W. Damm & søn 1843–1943: et firmas historie (Oslo, 1947), p. 105.Guldberg & Dzwonkowski was part of a relatively substantial printing and publishing industry that had developed in Christiania by the end of the 1830s. Christiania became the capital of Norway after Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in 1814. In 1814 it was a small town with some 14,000 residents. The city grew quickly, however, reaching around 34,000 inhabitants by 1845. Christiania was in 1819, according to a topographic-statistic description of Norway from 1840, home to five printers with nine presses, employing 35 workers. In 1839 the number of printers had increased to fifteen, with 35 presses, employing 91 workers.
4 In 1839 there were also three lithographic presses and one ‘copper press’ in Christiania, see: J. Kraft, Topographisk-statistisk Beskrivelse over Kongeriget Norge, 2nd edn, (4 vols, Christiania, 1838–42), vol. 1, p. 140. The growth in the number of periodicals and books published reflected the increased activity in the printing trades.
5 In 1814 there were six newspapers in the entire country, three of them coming out in Christiania. By 1848, forty newspapers were published in Norway, five of them in Christiania: H. L. Tveterås, Norske tidsskrifter: bibliografi over periodiske skrifter i Norge inntil 1920, Kronologisk utg. (Oslo, 1984); H. L. Tveterås, Den norske bokhandels historie: Forlag og bokhandel inntil 1850 (Oslo, 1950), vol. 1, pp. 179–84.This increased activity also reflected a better political climate for newspapers and periodicals in Norway. While the Norwegian constitution of 1814 had established freedom of the press, this newfound freedom of the press was not embraced by everyone. The foremost sceptic was Charles John (1763–1844), the new king of Sweden and Norway. When he witnessed how the press used its freedom, he was seriously worried by the destabilising effect some of the utterances might have. The king’s policies to stifle press freedom in Norway were successful and very effective for short periods of time, but they ultimately failed on a general level. In combination with the growing belief in the great advantages of the freedom of the press, the king’s failure gradually led to better terms for newspapers and periodicals in the decades following 1814.
6 K. Nymark, ‘Kampen om trykkefriheten. Karl Johan og den norske presse 1814–1844’ (PhD thesis, University of South-East Norway, 2020), <https://openarchive.usn.no/usn-xmlui/handle/11250/2681517>.While the decades following the emancipation from the Danish crown saw a substantial rise in the Norwegian and Christiania book and periodical trade, it took time for the local printing and publishing trade to develop into what we can recognise as a modern publishing business. The publisher, by the early nineteenth century, had become a specialised part of the book trade in many places in Europe. In Norway, long into the 1850s, there were no clear boundaries between being a printer, bookseller and publisher. As Guldberg & Dzwonkowski was an example of, the printer, publisher and the establishment that sold you a book or periodical would, in many cases, be one and the same. The function of a publisher was not yet established as a specialised part of the book trade, and printers, booksellers, bookbinders and in many cases the author would often be listed as the publisher of a work.
7 H. Tveterås, Den norske bokhandel, 1, pp. 221–2.The
Penny Magazine and its imitators were central in the transformation of the printing and publishing industry in the nineteenth century. On the surface,
Skilling-Magazin looked like the
Penny Magazine and similar illustrated magazines, many of its texts and images even came directly from those periodicals. However, while periodicals and newspapers in Europe were beginning to employ more efficient iron presses and steam-driven cylindrical presses in specially built premises from the 1820s, printers in Norway continued to use wooden hand presses far into the mid-century.
8 On technologies of printing in nineteenth-century Norway, see T. A. Johansen, Trangen til læsning stiger, selv oppe i Ultima Thule’: aviser, ekspansjon og teknologisk endring ca. 1763–1880, Pressehistoriske skrifter 7 (Oslo, 2006), pp. 65ff. It took around 30 years from the first usable cylinder presses were sold in England until the technology was applied in Norway. Yet the volume of newspapers, periodicals and books published in Norway and Christiania grew significantly during these three decades. More important than the availability of technology, however, was a market that was large enough to justify the significant investments in mechanised presses. Until the mid-nineteenth century, hardly any Norwegian publications achieved a circulation that could not be met by employing an extra hand press or two. As such, wooden hand presses were not a hindrance to the printers in Christiania, but a useful tool.