Hartlieb studied at Brieg Gymnasium and Königsberg University and briefly at the University of Cambridge in England. In 1628, he went to England from Elbing, where he became one of the initiators of the Royal Society, London. There he married and lived the rest of his life. He was very active in getting another likewise educator, the Protestant Moravian Brethren refugee, Johann Amos Comenius, to come to England.

His original letters in German and English are recently being studied intensively.

Samuel Hartlieb set out with the goal: "To record all human knowledge and to make it universally available for the education of all mankind".

See: encyclopedia