The Encyclopædia Britannica has been published continuously since 1768, appearing in fifteen official editions. Several editions were amended with multi-volume "supplements" (3rd, 4th/5th/6th), several consisted of previous editions with added supplements (10th, 12th, 13th), and one represented a drastic re-organization (15th). In recent years, digital versions of the Britannica have been developed, both online and on optical media. Since the early 1930s, the Britannica has developed "spin-off" products to leverage its reputation as a reliable reference work and educational tool.
Print editions were ended in 2012, but the Britannica continues as an online encyclopedia on the internet.
Historical context
Encyclopedias of various types had been published since antiquity, beginning with the collected works of Aristotle and the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, the latter having 2,493 articles in 37 books. Encyclopedias were published in Europe and China throughout the Middle Ages, such as the Satyricon of Martianus Minneus Felix Capella (early 5th century), the Speculum majus (Great Mirror) of Vincent of Beauvais (1250), and Encyclopedia septem tomis distincta (A Seven-Part Encyclopedia) by Johann Heinrich Alsted (1630). Most early encyclopedias did not include biographies of living people and were written in Latin, although some encyclopedias were translated into English, such as De proprietatibus rerum (On the properties of things) (1240) by Bartholomeus Anglicus. However, English-composed encyclopedias appeared in the 18th century, beginning with Lexicon technicum, or A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences by John Harris (two volumes, published 1704 and 1710, respectively), which contained articles by such contributors as Isaac Newton. Ephraim Chambers wrote a very popular two-volume Cyclopedia in 1728, which went through multiple editions and awakened publishers to the enormous profit potential of encyclopedias. Although not all encyclopedias succeeded commercially, their elements sometimes inspired future encyclopedias; for example, the failed two-volume A Universal History of Arts and Sciences of Dennis de Coetlogon (published 1745) grouped its topics into long self-contained treatises, an organization that likely inspired the "new plan" of the Britannica. The first encyclopedia to include biographies of living people was the 64-volume Grosses Universal-Lexicon (published 1732–1759) of Johann Heinrich Zedler, who argued that death alone should not render people notable.
Earliest editions (first–sixth, 1768–1824) First edition, 1771
The Britannica was the idea of Colin Macfarquhar, a bookseller and printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, both of Edinburgh. They conceived of the Britannica as a conservative reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot (published 1751–1766), which was widely viewed as heretical. Ironically, the Encyclopédie had begun as a French translation of the popular English encyclopedia, Cyclopaedia published by Ephraim Chambers in 1728. Although later editions of Chambers' Cyclopaedia were still popular, and despite the commercial failure of other English encyclopedias, Macfarquhar and Bell were inspired by the intellectual ferment of the Scottish Enlightenment and thought the time ripe for a new encyclopedia "compiled upon a new plan".
Needing an editor, the two chose a 28-year-old scholar named William Smellie who was offered 200 pounds sterling to produce the encyclopedia in 100 parts (called "numbers" and equivalent to thick pamphlets), which were later bound into three volumes. The first number appeared on 10 December 1768 in Edinburgh, priced sixpence or 8 pence on finer paper. The Britannica was published under the pseudonym "A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland", possibly referring to the many gentlemen who had bought subscriptions. By releasing the numbers in weekly instalments, the Britannica was completed in 1771, having 2,391 pages. The numbers were bound in three equally sized volumes covering A–B, C–L, and M–Z; an estimated 3,000 sets were eventually sold, priced at 12 pounds sterling apiece. The first edition also featured 160 copperplate illustrations engraved by Bell. Three of the engravings in the section on midwifery, depicting childbirth in clinical detail, were sufficiently shocking to prompt some readers to tear those engravings out of the volume.
The key idea that set the Britannica apart was to group related topics together into longer essays, that were then organized alphabetically. Previous English encyclopedias had generally listed related terms separately in their alphabetical order, rather like a modern technical dictionary, an approach that the Britannica's''' management described as "dismembering the sciences". Although anticipated by Dennis de Coetlogon, the idea for this "new plan" is generally ascribed to Colin Macfarquhar, although William Smellie claimed it as his own invention.
Smellie wrote most of the first edition, borrowing liberally from the authors of his era, including Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. He later said:
The vivid prose and easy navigation of the first edition led to strong demand for a second. Although this edition has been faulted for its imperfect scholarship, Smellie argued that the Britannica should be given the benefit of the doubt:
Smellie strove to make Britannica as usable as possible, saying that "utility ought to be the principal intention of every publication. Wherever this intention does not plainly appear, neither the books nor their authors have the smallest claim to the approbation of mankind".
The first edition was reprinted in London, with slight variants on the title page and a different preface, by Edward and Charles Dilly in 1773 and by John Donaldson in 1775. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the 1st edition, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. published a facsimile of the 1st edition, even including "age spots" on the paper. This has been periodically reprinted and is still part of Britannica's product line.
Second edition, 1783, Supplement 1784
After the success of the first edition, a more ambitious second edition was begun in 1776, with the addition of history and biography articles. Smellie declined to be editor, principally because he objected to the addition of biography. Macfarquhar took over the role himself, aided by pharmacist James Tytler, M.A.,The degree of M.A. is found after his name in the 11th edition of Britannica in the article Encyclopedia, vol. 9., p. 378 who was known as an able writer and willing to work for a very low wage. Macfarquhar and Bell rescued Tytler from the debtors' sanctuary at Holyrood Palace, and employed him for seven years at 17 shillings per week. Tytler wrote many science and history articles and almost all of the minor articles; by Robert Burns' estimate, Tytler wrote more than three-quarters of the second edition. Compared to the first edition, the second had five times as many long articles (150), including "Scotland" (84 pages), "Optics" (132 pages), and "Medicine" (309 pages), which had their own indices. The second edition was published in 181 numbers from 21 June 1777 to 18 September 1784; these numbers were bound into 10 volumes dated 1778–1783, having 8,595 pages and 340 plates again engraved by Andrew Bell. A pagination error caused page 8000 to follow page 7099. Most of the maps of this edition (eighteen of them) are found in a single 195-page article, "Geography".
The second edition improved greatly upon the first, but is still notable for the large amount of now-archaic information it contained. For example, "Chemistry" goes into great detail on an obsolete system of what would now be called alchemy, in which earth, air, water and fire are named elements containing various amounts of phlogiston. Tytler also describes the architecture of Noah's Ark in detail (illustrated with a copperplate engraving). The second edition also reports a cure for tuberculosis:
and a somewhat melancholy article on "Love" that persisted in the Britannica for nearly a century (until its ninth edition):
Like the first edition, the second was sold in sections by subscription at the printing shop of Colin MacFarquhar. When finished in 1784, complete sets were sold at Charles Elliot's bookshop in Edinburgh for 10 pounds, unbound. More than 1,500 copies of the second edition were sold this way by Elliot in less than one year,The Great EB, the story of Encyclopædia Britannica, Herman Kogan, p. 21 making the second edition enough of a financial success that a more ambitious third edition was begun a few years later.
The long period of time during which this edition was written makes the later volumes more updated than the earlier ones. Volume 10, published in 1783 after the Revolutionary War was over, gives in the entry for Virginia: "Virginia, late one of the British colonies, now one of the United States of North America..." but the entry in Volume 2 for Boston, published in 1778, states: "Boston, the capital of New England in North America, ....The following is a description of this capital before the commencement of the present American war."Encyclopædia Britannica, second edition. Edinburgh.
The causes of the Revolution are outlined concisely by Tytler in the article "Colonies" thus:
A 204-page appendix, written in 1784, is found at the end of Vol. 10. It does not have its own title page, but merely follows with pagination continuing from 8996 to 9200. The appendix introduces articles on Entomology, Ichthyology, Weather, Hindus (spelled Gentoos), and others, and contains many new biographies, including one of Captain James Cook. It curiously contains 25 new pages on Air, which give very little new information about air itself, but mainly cover hot air ballooning, one of Tytler's hobbies. The first page of the supplement begins with the words "Appendix containing articles omitted and others further explained or improved, together with corrections of errors and of wrong references." The appendix also includes 10 plates, namely CCCXIV to CCCXXIII.
Third edition, 1797
The third edition was published from 1788 to 1797 in 300 weekly numbers (1 shilling apiece); these numbers were collected and sold unbound in 30 parts (10 shilling, sixpence each), and finally in 1797 they were bound in 18 volumes with 14,579 pages and 542 plates, and given title pages dated 1797 for all volumes. Macfarquhar again edited this edition up to "Mysteries" but died in 1793 (aged 48) of "mental exhaustion"; his work was taken over by George Gleig, later Bishop Gleig of Brechin (consecrated 30 October 1808). James Tytler again contributed heavily to the authorship, up to the letter M.George Gleig in the foreword to Encyclopædia Britannica Third Edition, 1797, Vol. 1, p. preface, Gleig lists authors of the 3rd edition Andrew Bell, Macfarquhar's partner, bought the rights to the Britannica from Macfarquhar's heirs.