Karol Bogusław Pfaff

Karol Bogusław Pfaff was a Lwów bookseller and printer and the father-in-law of Warsaw publisher Antoni Brzezina. Pfaff opened a bookshop in Lwów in 1780. This was one of the first Galician branches of a Warsaw firm managed by Michael Gröll. Business was brisk enough for Pfaff to strike out on his own in 1785. He also expanded into selling sheet music and instruments. ‘The state of the book trade in Lwów in those days cannot be known with any certainty’, wrote Ignacy Chodynicki in detailing the history of the Kingdom of Galicja and Lodomeria. ‘For the Austrian regime, however, a given branch of trade and industry slowly expanded whenever learning in that field began to increase. While Piller monopolised the trade in rudimentary texts and educational books in addition to owning a printing shop, Karol Bogusław Pfaff established a permanent bookshop in Lwów in 1785 and imported various works in Polish and other languages’.