The Britannica was the idea of Colin Macfarquhar, a bookseller and printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, both of Edinburgh. The flow of short entries is interrupted here by one of the major treatises. 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.Įarliest editions (1st–6th, 1768–1824) First edition, 1771 Ī page from the first edition. 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. 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. 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 17, respectively), which contained articles by such contributors as Isaac Newton. 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. 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). ( June 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Įncyclopedias 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 2493 articles in 37 books.
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