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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, née l'Epine. 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 Das heimliche Gericht ('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 territory 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 also was 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, née l'Epine. His father had emigrated to France, where he worked as 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 Journal étranger. Little is known about Huber's French mother; his parents were married before c. 1759 and several of their children died in infancy before Huber's birth. The child was baptised Louis Ferdinand in the Catholic Church of Saint André des Arcs; 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 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 Les Conversations d'Émilie was published in Leipzig by Siegfried Leberecht Crusius. 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 Pasquale Bondini and Joseph Seconda in Leipzig in 1783, without much success, and subsequently printed in Berlin in 1784. His next work was a translation of Telèphe, en douze livres by Jean de Pechméja, appearing with Crusius in 1784. His 1785 play Ethelwolf oder der König kein König, an adaptation of A King and No King appeared together with comments about the authors Beaumo.... Discover the Claudia Pilling Diana Schilling Mirjam S popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Claudia Pilling Diana Schilling Mirjam S books.