In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes. It was first published between 17 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, as three volumes. Printed for 244 years, the Britannica was the longest running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. It was written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. It was formerly published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., and other publishers (for previous editions). Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on /roomfordebate.The Encyclopædia Britannica ( Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia which is now published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia. (A-ak: ancient Korean music and the first word in my Britannica set.) It was containable, unlike the sprawling chaos of Wikipedia. The Britannica marched along, neatly and orderly, from A to Z. Hans Koning, the New Yorker writer, once called the Britannica the culmination of the Enlightenment, the naïve belief that all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view. A set of Britannicas sent the message that all the world’s information could fit on one shelf. Legend has it he ended up burning the volumes for kindling. On his trip to Antarctica, the explorer Ernest Shackleton lugged the entire ninth edition with him in the boat. Fill your living room shelf with encyclopedias, and you were announcing, “Yes, we are an intellectually curious family.” A mounted moose head, but for the brainy.
For decades, the Britannica served a symbolic purpose. It’s much harder to lock up a Web site.īut physicality has its rewards as well. Back in 1751, the Britannica’s predecessor - Diderot’s Encyclopedie - was deemed so dangerous by King Louis XV that he had the volumes locked up in the Bastille alongside murderers and madmen. I’m aware that digital has tons of advantages - speed, size and searchability among them. Look up Abbott and Costello, and you might be lured in by abalones or Absalom, who died after his luxurious hair got caught in a tree.īut you can’t reverse the arrow of time, to borrow a phrase from the astronomer Arthur Eddington (thanks, Britannica). The Britannica encouraged serendipitous discoveries. Such juxtapositions were key to its charm. I marveled at the odd collision of words on the bindings (one volume runs from “Excretion” to “Geometry”). I fell hard for the familiar smell of leatherette covers and the crinkling of the pages. I adored the literal weight of each volume (4 pounds), which somehow lent it metaphorical gravitas as well. I know I sound like a crotchety old grandfather on the porch reminiscing about the good old days of rumble seats, but I loved having pages you could actually turn, not click or swipe. Forester, the author of “Horatio Hornblower,” found it so riveting that he read the whole thing twice.
George Bernard Shaw and the heart surgeon Michael DeBakey are members of the start-to-finish club. Long before me, encyclopedia reading had an esteemed history. But as I learned from the Britannica, stunts can have their own absurd nobility, whether it was Tenzing Norgay summiting Everest or the 19th century French acrobat Charles Blondin strolling across the Niagara Falls on a tightrope, stopping midway to make and eat an omelet. About 10 years ago, worried that my brain was turning to tapioca, I decided to smarten up by reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica – all 32 leather-bound volumes. I spent many hundreds of hours with those gold-embossed Britannica volumes on my lap, flipping through the tissue-thin pages and squinting at the 9-point font.
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