Oettinger, Edward Maria

Oettinger, Edward Maria, a German bibliographer, was born Nov. 19, 1808, at Breslau, in Silesia, of Jewish parents. Having studied at the gymnasium of his native place, he went to Vienna, and joined the Roman Catholic Church. After 1829 he edited different periodicals at Berlin, Hamburg, Manheim, and Leipsic, and wrote several dramas, novels, and romances. His poems, which he published under the title Buch der Liebe, were published at Leipsic in a fifth edition in 1850. Besides a historical work- Geschichte des danischen Hofs von Christian II, bis Friedrich VII (Hamburg, 1859, 8 vols.) — he published his famous bibliographical work, Bibliographie biographique, ou dictionnaire de 26,000 ouvrages, relatifs a l'histoire de la vie publique et privee des hommes celebres de tons les temps et de toutes les nations (Leips. 1850; the same in 2 vols. Paris, 1866): — Historisches Archiv, enthaltend ein systematisch - chronologisch geordnetes Verzeichniss von 17,000 der brauchbarsten Quellenzum Studium der Geschichte (Carlsruhe, 1841): — Moniteur des dates, contenant un million de renseignements biographiques, geneal. et historiques (Dresden, 1866-1868, 6 vols. 4to) — a work which, as a biographicogenealogico-historical lexicon, is not only indispensable to librarians, historians, and bibliographers, but which at its first appearance was unanimously praised as a gigantic work of German industry and scholarship. Oettinger died June 26, 1872. A supplement to his Monitelur des dates is now published by Dr. H. Schramm, the biographer of Oettinger. See Literarischer Handweiser (1872), p. 368; Kurz, Literaturgeschichte, vol. iv (see Index); Dr. K. Schutze, Deutschland's Dichter und Dichterinnen, s.v. (B. P.)