Ernst Keil

Ernst Victor Keil was a German bookseller, journalist, editor and publisher. His early publications promoted liberal views and satirized famous politicians leading up to the German revolutions of 1848–49, resulting in government censorship and earning him a short prison stay in 1852. He then developed Die Gartenlaube, a weekly illustrated magazine aimed at enlightening and entertaining the whole family, particularly the middle and lower classes of society. It became the first successful mass-market German language magazine. By the time of his death in 1878, Gartenlaube had reached a paid circulation of 382,000 and an actual readership of at least 2 million, making it one of the most widely read publications in the world at the time. Keil's work had a significant and lasting influence on the formation of a German national identity before, during and after the unification of Germany in 1871.