Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is widely considered to be one of the most comprehensive encyclopedias published, as well as being an authoritative reference for the subjects it covers. The Britannica has been published in 27 editions, starting with the first edition published from 1768 to 1771, to the most recent edition printed in 2007. The recent editions of the Britannica are available in printed and digital forms, and there are a Student Edition and a Concise Edition available.

History

The Encyclopædia Britannica was created during the Scottish Enlightenment of the late 18th Century, a time exemplified by the work of Adam Smith, Robert Burns, and David Hume. In this atmosphere of intellectual ferment, Colin Macfarquhar, a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, formed a "Society of Gentlemen" to produce an encyclopedia, inspired by the Encyclopédie of Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot.

First Edition, 1768-1771

The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica described itself as "A Dictonary of Arts and Sciences compiled upon a new plan. In which The different Sciences and Arts are digested into distinct Treatises or Systems; and The various Technical Terms, &c. are explained as they occur in the order of the Alphabet." The first edition was compiled and released in individual "fascicles", which were eventually compiled into three separate volumes, A-B, C-L, M-Z. Publication started in 1768, the first volume (A-B) was completed in 1769, the second (C-L) in 1770, and the third (M-Z) in 1771. In the first edition, many entries were very short, with references to large topic articles which covered large areas of knowledge in great depth. For example, the article on Anatomy extended 165 pages, while the entries for bone and brain were one-line references to the article on Anatomy.

Ninth Edition, 1875-1889

The Scholar's Edition, so-called because of the number of leading scholars who contributed articles.

Eleventh Edition, 1910-1911

The Eleventh Edition of the Britannica is, nearly one hundred years after its publication, regarded as one of the best encyclopedias ever published. Unlike earlier editions of the Britannica, the Eleventh Edition was compiled all at once and released all at once, so the earlier volumes were not outdated when the last volumes appeared. The Eleventh Edition was the first produced in cooperation with Cambridge University. Due to the authortative nature of the Eleventh Edition, and the lapse of copyright on it, many websites and publishers have made reprint editiions available. The Wikipedia initially populated a large number of its articles by copying articles from the Eleventh Edition.

Twelfth Edition, 1922

The Twelfth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was a reprint of the Eleventh Edition, with three supplemental volumes to cover all the changes in the intervening decade, a decade which was marked by the World War, with its accompanying tremendous increase in military technology, organization of industry, and the dissolution of the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires and the creation of a multitude of new states in Europe and transfers of colonies from one power to another.

Continuous Revision

Beginning in 1933, the EB adopted a practice of "continuous revision", where articles are revised between printings, and not just at the creation of a new edition.

Fifteenth Edition, 1974-1994

The Fifteenth edition of the EB saw a significant change in structure, splitting the encyclopedia into three parts: the Micropædia, with short summary articles on many thousands of topics, the Macropædia, with a small number of in-depth articles, and the Propædia, a single volume containing a structural outline of human knowledge.