He still, however, devoted most of his attention to his own business, and, for many years, made all the entries into the ledger with his own hand. He relieved the tedium of almost ceaseless toil by pleasant intercourse with literary men. With Schiller, Huber, and Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736–1809) he was on terms of the warmest friendship; and he was also intimate with Herder, Schelling, Fichte, Richter, Voss, Hebel, Tieck, Therese Huber, Matthisson, the brothers Humboldt, Johann Müller, Spittler and others, whose works he published in whole or in part. In the correspondence of Alexander von Humboldt with Varnhagen von Ense we see the familiar relations in which the former stood to the Cotta family. In 1795 he published the "Politischen Annalen" and the "Jahrbücher der Baukunde", and in 1798 the "Damenalmanach", along with some works of less importance. In 1807 he issued the "Morgenblatt", to which Schorn's "Kunstblatt" and Menzel's "Literaturblatt" were afterwards added.