Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jordaan Luchtmans registered his name with the Leiden booksellers' guild on the 17th of May 1683. This event marked the beginning of a lineage that would outlast his own bloodline by more than a century. The business remained within the Luchtmans family for 165 years.
E.J. Brill took over the business after the last direct heir of the Luchtmans family died in 1848. E.J. Brill was a former employee who had served as steward to the company for decades. His father Johannes had also been the steward before him.
E.J. Brill published a volume titled The Lord's Prayer in Fourteen Languages in 1855. This book showcased the publisher's ability to typeset non-Latin alphabets including Hebrew, Aramaic, Samaritan, Sanskrit, Coptic, Syriac, and Arabic. The publication signaled that Brill was a global publisher capable of bridging Western and Eastern scholarship.
Theunis Folkers took over the reins of Brill in 1934 and presided over a period of unprecedented growth during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The company's annual turnover surged from 132,000 guilders in 1934 to 579,000 guilders by 1943. Folkers cooperated with the German occupying forces to allow the company to continue its operations.
The Dutch denazification committee determined the presence of collaboration between the company and the German occupying forces after the war. This collaboration cast a long shadow over the company's history. The committee investigated the actions taken by Theunis Folkers during the war years.