Editing Johann Heinrich Zedler (section)

===Fresh start and the fight against pirated publications===
The financial commitment of the Leipzig businessman Johann Heinrich Wolf gave Zedler a new start.
In the ''Universal Lexicon'', Wolf is described as a merchant with a special love of science who likes nothing better than reading good and scholarly books.{{sfn|Gross Lexicon - Wolff}}
Quedenbaum thought Wolf took over further funding of Zedler because he was right in the target audience of the ''Universal Lexicon'', and  believed in continuing the work rather than in letting it cease.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=221}}
There are no recorded documents such as a contract between Zedler and Wolf, so the details of the relationship are not known.

On 5 August 1737, Zedler's imperial privilege for printing the ''Universal Lexicon'' was suspended.
Zedler said this was because of failure to deliver copies of his work due to the imperial court.
Quedenbaum considers this unlikely and suggests that the withdrawal of the imperial printing privilege was due to the influence of the book printer and publisher Johann Ernst Schultze, of the Bavarian court.{{sfn|Quedenbaum|1977|p=218}}
Schultze was aware of Zedler's financial collapse, since he had been involved in printing previous volumes.{{sfn|Juntke|1956|p=30}}
Also, Schultze had found a suitable editor with Paul Daniel Longolius, who in 1735 had been appointed rector of the school at [[Hof, Germany|Hof]]. As a former employee of Zedler, Longolius had the experience needed for publication of further volumes of the Encyclopedia. After Zedler lost the privilege he had been granted in January 1735, Schultze requested an imperial privilege in his own name, which was issued on 11 June 1738.

Schultze printed 17th and 18th volumes of the Universal-Lexicon and tried to sell them in Leipzig. To this end, he sent the imperial notary Bernhard Christian Groot from [[Offenbach am Main|Offenbach]] with two journeymen printers as witnesses to the Leipzig Book Commission. The Book Commission accepted Groot but the Leipzig Council threw him out of town.
In a letter dated 10 October 1738 the council explained their decision to the State Government in Dresden, rejecting the validity of Groot's imperial authority to publish in the city.{{sfn|Kirchhoff|1892|p=96}}

For Zedler this document restricting the scope of the imperial privilege was a godsend, because it secured the continuation of his lexicon. The philosophy professor [[Carl Günther Ludovici]], a classmate of Longolius, took over as editor of the ''Universal Lexicon'' from Volume 19. Schultze stopped printing further volumes of the Universal Lexicon's in 1745 because of financial difficulties.