Ludwig Ferdinand Huber or Louis Ferdinand Huber (1764 – 24 December 1804) was a German translator, diplomat, playwright, literary critic, and journalist. Born in Paris, Huber was the son of the Bavarian-born writer and translator Michael Huber and his French wife Anna Louise, . He grew up bilingual in French and German after his parents moved to Leipzig when he was two years old. He lacked a classical education but read voraciously and was well versed in modern languages, and started publishing translations from French and English at an early age. He also translated plays that were performed in theatres all over Germany. In the early 1780s, Huber became friends with the jurist Christian Gottfried Körner, his fiancée Minna Stock, and her older sister Dora Stock, whom he later promised to marry. Together, the friends wrote in admiration to the poet Friedrich Schiller and successfully invited him to come to Leipzig. Körner and Minna were married in 1785 and lived in Dresden, where they were joined by Dora, Schiller, and finally Huber, who shared a house with Schiller.
Huber found employment as a diplomat, and, in 1788, moved to Mainz, where he started a friendship with the world traveller Georg Forster and his wife Therese. In 1790, he became Therese's lover and moved into the Forsters' house. He wrote original plays, most notably ('The Secret Court'), but without much success, and turned to literary criticism. When rumours about his affair with Therese started to spread in literary circles, Huber broke his engagement with Dora, ending his friendship with Körner and damaging his relations with Schiller. When the French revolutionary army under Custine entered Mainz, Huber moved to Frankfurt, but stayed in contact with the Forsters, causing suspicion among his superiors. Therese Forster left Mainz for Strasbourg and then to the neutral Principality of Neuchâtel in present-day Switzerland, and Huber quit his diplomatic service to be with her. Georg Forster went to Paris as representative of the Republic of Mainz. After Forster agreed to a divorce, there was a final meeting of Forster with his family and Huber in Travers in November 1793, but Forster died in January 1794 before the divorce could be finalised, and Huber married Therese in April 1794. They moved to Bôle and collaborated on translations, while Huber was also active as a publicist and reviewer. He became a friend of the writer Isabelle de Charrière and translated several of her works.
In 1798, Huber returned to Germany, becoming editor in chief of Cotta's Allgemeine Zeitung in September. For political reasons, the newspaper moved from Tübingen via Stuttgart to Ulm, where Huber was given a title and an annual salary by the Elector of Bavaria in March 1804. After a journey to Leipzig and Göttingen, Huber fell ill and died in December 1804. He was mostly forgotten after his death, and was considered of interest mostly as a friend of Schiller, Forster and de Charrière. Some of his literary criticism had long-lasting importance, especially his reviews of Goethe's works.
Family background and early life
Huber was born on 15 August or 14 September 1764 in Paris. His parents were Michael Huber, a Bavarian-born writer, translator, and language teacher, and his wife Anna Louise, . His father had emigrated to France, where he worked as a translator and language teacher. His French translation of Salomon Gessner's The Death of Abel that appeared in 1759 was very successful, and he became a regular contributor to the . Little is known about Huber's French mother; his parents were married before and several of their children died in infancy before Huber's birth. The child was baptised Louis Ferdinand in the Catholic ; one godparent was the wife of Michael Huber's friend Johann Georg Wille, a German-born artist and engraver. The father had no reliable source of income in Paris. When the position of a teacher of French at the University of Leipzig became available in 1766, he was happy to accept an offer that had been mediated by the art historian and diplomat Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn and the writer Christian Felix Weiße. The Huber family left for Leipzig in September 1766.
Huber, who was still called Louis Ferdinand by his family, grew up bilingual in French and German in culture-rich surroundings. His father had many connections to Leipzig society, including to the artist Adam Friedrich Oeser, who had influenced the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as well as to poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. Michael Huber also had a large collection of engravings that attracted visitors and was mentioned in Goethe's autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit, and he became known as an art expert. Nevertheless, he was never financially well off, and as a Catholic, could not obtain a formal Chair at the Protestant university. Huber's mother offered regular dinners for paying students interested in improving their French. This was not a very lucrative business, but it provided interesting company. Huber also learned English during this time; it is likely that he was instructed in speaking and conversation by one of his parents' boarders.
Huber's mother was overprotective of her only surviving child and kept the boy from all physical exercise for years after a slight accident at the age of eight. Huber never learned to ride on horseback or to dance, and was physically awkward all his life, except while playing billiards or during theatrical productions. His education was unsystematic; he read voraciously the books in his father's house, most of which were in French, and became highly knowledgeable in some fields while missing out on others that would have been expected from an educated young person in his time. Huber had no instruction in Ancient Greek and classical antiquity, he lacked knowledge of music or natural sciences, and he had no religious education nor any interest in religious questions. On the other hand, he knew foreign languages and was enthusiastic about literature; in addition to English, French, and German, he could read Italian. He was especially enthusiastic about William Shakespeare's plays.
While still in his teens, Huber began working on translations. In 1782, his translation of the second French edition of Louise d'Épinay's was published in Leipzig by . He next translated Colley Cibber's comedy Love Makes a Man from English into German. Huber's adaptation was performed by the theatre company of and Joseph Seconda in Leipzig in 1783, without much success, and subsequently printed in Berlin in 1784. His next work was a translation of by , appearing with Crusius in 1784. His 1785 play , an adaptation of A King and No King appeared together with comments about the authors Beaumont and Fletcher and their era, and was performed several times in Mannheim and Berlin. In the same year, he published one of several translations of the Pierre Beaumarchais play , which was successfully performed in Leipzig by Bondini–Seconda but met with critical disapproval. Huber's translations were very literal, including literal translations of idiomatic expressions.
Friendship with Körner and Schiller
From , Huber formed a close friendship with the jurist Christian Gottfried Körner, his fiancée , and her older sister Dora Stock. Dora and Minna were the daughters of the engraver , and Dora became a well-known painter. Minna was said to be very beautiful, while Dora was short with a slightly curved spine, but a lively temperament. Körner obtained an administrative position at the Consistory in Dresden in 1783 and had to move there, but often visited Leipzig.
In 1784, the four friends read Friedrich Schiller's play The Robbers and decided to write to the author, with whom they were not personally acquainted. Together with letters of admiration, the longest of which was by Huber, they sent a purse embroidered by Minna, a musical adaptation of a Schiller poem by Körner, and four sketches depicting the friends by Dora. Schiller was delighted, but only answered a few months later, asking for help and a place to stay as he felt unable to continue his life in Mannheim. Körner inherited his father's fortune in January 1785 and was able to invite Schiller to Leipzig. Schiller was met by Huber when he arrived on 17 April 1785, an event that Huber later described as one of the most influential of his early life.
The two and the Stock sisters quickly became friends, and after two weeks of introducing Schiller to many of the city's artists and intellectuals, they all moved to the village of Gohlis just north of Leipzig, where Schiller lived in a farmhouse that became known as the Schillerhaus. The young publisher Georg Joachim Göschen soon joined them.
Huber became engaged to Dora Stock around this time, agreeing to marry her once he had the means. On 7 August 1785, Körner and Minna were married, and Dora soon moved to their Dresden household. Schiller also moved to Dresden in September 1785, leaving Huber behind in Leipzig. On the initiative of Huber's parents, the Saxony minister agreed to help their son to find employment in the diplomatic service. Huber then also moved to Dresden, where he lived together with Schiller, in a house owned by the court gardener Fleischmann and close to the Körner city residence on Kohlmarkt. From time to time, he met with von Stutterheim to improve his communication skills for interacting at court, but he did very little to build connections that could lead to a diplomatic appointment.
For Körner's 30th birthday, Huber and Schiller worked together on a small book, , with watercolours painted by Schiller and texts written by Huber that humorously depicted the Körners and their friends. The booklet was first reprinted in 1862 and not included in any edition of Schiller's works. The manuscript, considered lost at the end of the 19th century, is now in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
In Schiller's magazine Thalia, Huber published an essay in 1786 on the topic of greatness, and he later became one of the most important contributors to the journal. In 1787, Schiller moved to Weimar; Huber adapted Dumaniant's play into German as . After its premiere, directed by Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, it was performed more than a hundred times, including seventeen performances at Weimar while Goethe was the theatre director there.
In the autumn of 1787, Huber found employment: he was appointed secretary to the legation of Saxony in the Electorate of Mainz, a solid employment with the hope for further career advances as a diplomat. While his parents, his fiancée, and other friends were happy, Schiller saw this as a waste of Huber's literary talents. In 1788, Huber joined a Masonic lodge, in Leipzig, where Körner had been a member since 1777. Schiller was surprised and somewhat taken aback by his friends' Masonic activities.
Diplomat in Mainz To take up his new employment in Mainz, Huber travelled via Leipzig, Weimar and Frankfurt. He visited his parents in Leipzig and saw Schiller in Weimar. In Frankfurt, he met Goethe's mother Catharina Elisabeth Goethe, who liked him and provided him with a copy of the prose version of her son's play Iphigenia in Tauris. He then arrived in Mainz on 21 April 1788. At first, he was isolated and had difficulties making friends. He was dissatisfied with the monotony of his work, which included copying and decoding messages. After he complained in a letter to Schiller, he received a response admonishing him not to give up in the face of difficulties and praising him for the earlier scenes of Huber's play , which had been published in three issues of Thalia. Schiller stated that many people thought he was the play's author. Huber was thrilled by this response, and not only successfully applied for help reducing his workload but also continued working on his drama. However, Schiller later described the play as wordy and incoherent.