Encyclopedia

An (alternatively encyclopaedia/encyclopædia) is a written compendium of knowledge. The term comes from the Greek {{polytonic|????????? ???????}} (engkuklios paideia), literally "a rounded education". Many encyclopedias are titled Cyclopaedia and the terms are interchangeable.

Modern encyclopedias

The modern idea of the general-purpose, widely distributed printed encyclopedia precedes Denis Diderot and the 18th century encyclopedists.

Related Topics:
Denis Diderot - 18th century - Encyclopedist

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The term encyclopaedia was coined by fifteenth century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny and Quintilian. Although John Harris is often credited with establishing the now-familiar encyclopedia format in 1704 with his Lexicon technicum, the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne specifically employed the word encyclopaedia in the preface to his readers to describe his work Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors as early as 1646. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the time-honoured schemata of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which ascends a hierarchical ladder via the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary and cosmological worlds. Browne's compendium of refutations of common errors of his age was England's first popular household encyclopaedia. Its popularity is confirmed by the fact that it went through no less than five editions, each revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672. Pseudodoxia Epidemica also found itself upon the bookshelves of many educated European readers for throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was translated into the French, Dutch and German languages as well as Latin.

Related Topics:
John Harris - 1704 - Lexicon technicum - Thomas Browne - Pseudodoxia Epidemica - 1646 - 1672 - French - Dutch - German - Latin

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Ephraim Chambers published his Cyclopaedia in 1723. The French translation of this was the inspiration of the Encyclopédie, perhaps the most famous early encyclopedia, edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot and completed in 1772 - 28 volumes, 71,818 articles, 2,885 illustrations. The venerable Encyclopædia Britannica had a modest beginning in Scotland: from 1768 to 1797 three editions were published.

Related Topics:
Ephraim Chambers - 1723 - Encyclopédie - Jean le Rond d'Alembert - Denis Diderot - 1772 - Encyclopædia Britannica - 1768 - 1797

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The early years of the nineteenth century saw a flowering of encyclopedia publishing in the United Kingdom, Europe and America. In England Rees's Cyclopaedia (1802?1819) contains an enormous amount in information about the industrial and scientific revolutions of the time. A feature of these publications is the high-quality illustrations made by engravers like Wilson Lowry of art work supplied by specialist draftsmen like John Farey, Jr. Encyclopaedias were published in Scotland, as a result of the Scottish Enlightenment, for education there was of a higher standard than in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Related Topics:
Rees's Cyclopaedia - 1802 - 1819 - Wilson Lowry - John Farey, Jr. - Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment - United Kingdom

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Encyclopædia Britannica appeared in various editions throughout the century, and the growth of popular education and the Mechanics Institutes, spearheaded by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge led to the production of the Penny Cyclopaedia, as its title suggests issued in weekly numbers at a penny each like a newspaper.

Related Topics:
Popular education - Mechanics Institutes - Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge - Penny Cyclopaedia - Newspaper

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In the 20th century, Encyclopædia Britannica reached its fifteenth edition, and cheap encyclopedias such as Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia and Everyman's Encyclopaedia were common.

Related Topics:
20th century - Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia - Everyman's Encyclopaedia

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More recently encyclopedias are also being published online.

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Traditional encyclopedias are written by a number of employed text writers, usually people with an academic degree. This is not the case with Wikipedia, a project started in 2001 with the goal to create a free encyclopedia. Anyone can add or improve text, images, and sounds. The contents are licensed under a free copyleft license (the GFDL). By 2004 the project has managed to produce over a million articles in over 80 languages.

Related Topics:
Writer - Academic degree - Wikipedia - 2001 - Text - Image - Sound - License - Copyleft - GFDL - 2004 - Million - Article - Language

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Encyclopedias are essentially derivative from what has gone before, and particularly in the 19th century, piracy was common. To make space for modern topics, valuable material of historic use has to be discarded. But old encyclopedias should not be overlooked, especially for a record of changes in science and technology.

Related Topics:
19th century - Piracy

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