History Of Encyclopaedias

Encyclopaedias in the West

Early development

The first fragments of an encyclopaedia to have survived are the work

of Speusippus (died 339/338 BCE), a nephew of Plato’s. Speusippus conveyed his uncle’s
ideas in a series of writings on natural history, mathematics, philosophy, and so
forth. Aristotle’s wide-ranging lectures at the Lyceum were equally influential, and he
and Plato appear to have been the originators of the encyclopaedia as a means of
providing a comprehensive cultural background.

The Greek approach was to record the spoken word. The Romans, on the other hand,
aimed to epitomize existing knowledge in readable form. Their first known effort is
the Praecepta ad filium (“Advice to His Son”; c. 183 BCE), a series of letters (now lost)
written by the Roman consul Marcus Porcius Cato (known as Cato the Censor) to his
son. Cato’s intention was to provide a summary of useful information that could help in
the process of living and in guiding and helping one’s fellow men. A more substantial
attempt was made by the learned Latin writer Marcus Terentius Varro in
his Disciplinarum libri IX (“Nine Books of Disciplines”), his Rerum divinarum et
humanarum antiquitates (“The Antiquities of Things Divine and Human”), and
his Imagines, which together covered the liberal arts, human efforts, the gods, and
biographies of the Greeks and Romans.

The most important Roman contribution was the Historia naturalis of Pliny the Elder, a
vast work constituting a kind of classified anthology of information. Although
undiscriminating in its record of fact and fancy, it was nevertheless very influential; the
Latin grammarian and writer Gaius Julius Solinus drew nearly 90 percent of his 3rd-
century Collectanea rerum memorabilium (“Collection of Memorabilia”) from Pliny,
and the Historia naturalis served as a major source for other encyclopaedias for at least
the next 1,500 years. Even today it is still an important record for details of Roman
sculpture and painting.

The statesman Cassiodorus, when he withdrew to the Vivarium in 551, dedicated this
monastery to sacred and classical learning. His Institutiones divinarum et saecularium
litterarum (“Institutes of Divine and Secular Literature”) seems to have been designed
to preserve knowledge in times that were largely inimical to it. In his encyclopaedia,
Cassiodorus drew a clear distinction between the sacred and the profane, but the first
Christian encyclopaedia to be compiled for the benefit of the newly converted Spanish
population followed a different scheme. St. Isidore (c. 560–636) considered the liberal
arts and secular learning to be the true basis of a Christian’s education.
His Etymologiae therefore paid much attention to practical matters and even included

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an etymological dictionary. This was in line with the thought of St. Jerome—on whose
encyclopaedic Chronicon and De viris illustribus St. Isidore had drawn—who, in
common with the early Christian Fathers, was eager to provide a basis for a Christian
interpretation and organization of knowledge. This concept was much later to be
renewed by the Catalan ecclesiastic Ramon Llull.

The development of the encyclopaedia during the next 500 years, though of social
interest, was undistinguished from the point of view of scholarship. Rabanus
Maurus (c. 776–856), one of the English scholar Alcuin’s favourite pupils, compiled De
universo (“On the Universe”), which, despite its being an unintelligent plagiarism of St.
Isidore’s work, had a lasting popularity and influence throughout the medieval period. A
series of encyclopaedias of special subjects—undistinguished anthologies of classical and
Christian writings on history, jurisprudence, agriculture, medicine, veterinary surgery,
and zoology—was organized by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus (905–959). Michael Psellus (1018–96), a tutor of a later emperor,
contributed a more interesting work, De omnifaria doctrina, in the form of questions
and answers on both the humanities and science. At this time there was a growing
influence on metropolitan and secular learning. In an attempt to counterbalance it, the
brief but charming Didascalion of Hugh of Saint-Victor (c. 1096–1141), which paid
much attention to practical matters as well as to the liberal arts, was soundly based on a
profound classification of knowledge that influenced many later encyclopaedias. About
this time an encyclopaedic dictionary known as Suda, or Suidas, broke with tradition by
adopting alphabetical order for its contents. This had no effect on the plan of later
encyclopaedias, but its contents included so much useful information that it has
retained its importance as a source throughout the succeeding centuries.

The Liber floridus (c. 1120) of Lambert of Saint-Omer is an unoriginal miscellany, but it
has an interest of its own in that it discards practical matters in favour
of metaphysical discussion and pays special attention to such subjects as magic and
astrology. The greatest achievement of the 12th century was the Imago
mundi of Honorius Inclusus. Honorius produced his “mirror of the world” for Christian,
later abbot of St. Jacob, and drew on a far wider range of authorities than any of his
predecessors. The arrangement of the first section on geography, astrology, and
astronomy was sound; it started with the creation and worked down to individual
countries and cities. This was followed by a “chronicle,” and a third section provided a
brief list of important events since the fall of Satan. Honorius accurately foresaw his
book’s fate: innumerable copies, unauthorized plagiarisms, incessant criticism, and
incompetent additions for at least 200 years.

Probably the first encyclopaedia to be compiled by a woman, the Hortus deliciarum of

the abbess Herrad (died 1195), comprised a magnificent illuminated manuscript with
636 miniatures, intended to help and edify the nuns in her charge. Bartholomaeus
Anglicus based his De proprietatibus rerum (1220–40) on the works of St. Isidore and
Pliny. It was designed for ordinary people and became Europe’s most popular
encyclopaedia for the next three centuries. But the outstanding achievement of the
Middle Ages was the Speculum majus of Vincent of Beauvais. Vincent was not an
original writer but he was industrious, and his work comprised nearly 10,000 chapters

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in 80 books; no encyclopaedia rivalled it in size until the middle of the 18th century. The
work was very well balanced, almost equal space being allotted to the three sections. The
“Naturale” dealt with God and man, the creation, and natural history. For this Vincent
drew not only on Latin writings but also on Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew sources, which
were at that time (through translations) making a very considerable impact on the
thinking of the West. The “Doctrinale” covered practical matters as well as the scholastic
heritage of the age. The “Historiale” included a summary of the first two sections and a
history of the world from the creation to the times of St. Louis. A fourth section,
“Morale,” based principally on St. Thomas Aquinas, was added after Vincent’s death.
The influence of the Speculum majus was immediate and lasting. Translations were
made into several languages, and complete reprints appeared as late as 1863–79. One of
its many values is that it is a source for extracts from many documents of which no other
parts have survived. Another is its detailed history of the second quarter of the 13th
century.

Siege of AcreSiege of Acre (1191) during the Third Crusade, illustration from the 13th-century
encyclopaedia Speculum majus (“Great Mirror”).© Photos.com/Thinkstock

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Vincent’s was the last major work of its kind. Later encyclopaedists began to compile for
a wider public than the very limited world of religious communities. The first breakaway
from Latin came with Li livres dou trésor (“Treasure Books”) of Brunetto
Latini (c. 1220–95), the master of Dante, and the Florentine poet and philosopher Guido
Cavalcanti. Latini wanted to reach the mercantile and cultured classes of Italy; he
therefore used French, their common language. The arrangement of his work was
similar to Vincent’s but his approach was concise. The language, the brevity, and the
accuracy of his encyclopaedia had an immediate and wide appeal. A friend of
Petrarch’s, Pierre Bersuire, based his Reductorium, repertorium, et dictionarium
morale utriusque testamenti (“Moral Abridgment, Catalogue, and Dictionary of Each
Testament”; c. 1340) on Bartholomaeus’s De proprietatibus rerum. In contrast to
Latini’s work, this was a return to the traditional, with its moralizings on the Bible,
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and natural history, but it had a considerable success
when printing was introduced, being issued 12 times by 1526.

One of the most delightful of all encyclopaedias is the little Margarita

philosophica that Gregor Reisch (died 1525) wrote for young people. In some 200 pages
he contrived to cover in a very pleasing style the whole university course of the day, both
the trivium and the quadrivium (see liberal arts). The arrival of humanism is reflected in
the De disciplinis of Juan Luis Vives, a pioneer in psychology and philosophical method;
Vives grounded all his arguments on nature and made no appeal to religious authority.
With the writing of the anonymous Compendium philosophiae (c. 1300), the concept of
the modern scientific encyclopaedia was reached at last. It was the first encyclopaedia to
adopt an inquiring and impartial attitude to the things described, and the old wives’
tales that had filled so many pages of encyclopaedias from the time of Pliny onward were
replaced by the latest scientific discoveries.

The first indigenous French encyclopaedia, the popular Dictionarium historicum,

geographicum, et poeticum (“Historical, Geographical, and Poetic Dictionary”) of
Charles Estienne (1504–64), was not published until 1553. For encyclopaedias in their
own language, the French still had to rely on translations of the encyclopaedias of other
nations, such as Les diverses leçons (“The Various Lessons”; 1552) of Pedro Mexia,
a mediocre Spanish historian whose haphazard compilation was enormously popular in
the 16th and 17th centuries.

The development of the modern encyclopaedia (17th–18th centuries)

Francis Bacon’s purpose in writing the Instauratio magna was “to commence a total
reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper
foundations” in order to restore or cultivate a just and legitimate familiarity between
things and the mind. Only a small part of this enormous work was ever completed, but
the author had planned 130 sections divided into three main sections: external nature,
man, and man’s action on nature. From its proposed contents Bacon’s intention was
clearly to compile an encyclopaedia thoroughly scientific in character—“a
thing infinite and beyond the powers of man”—that he himself recognized to be

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revolutionary in character. His most important contribution was, however, the devising
of a new and thoroughly sound classification of knowledge that bears a remarkable
resemblance to the classification put forward by Matthias Martini in his Idea
Methodica (1606). Although Bacon was apparently unaware of this work, both
philosophers were probably working from the same basic Platonic precepts. The results
were profound: Diderot made a point of acknowledging the assistance Bacon’s analysis
of the structure of human knowledge had afforded him in planning the contents of
the Encyclopédie, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge hailed “the coinciding precepts of the
Athenian Verulam and the British Plato.”

Only two more Latin encyclopaedias of any importance followed. Antonio Zara, bishop
of Petina, compiled the Anatomia Ingeniorum et Scientiarum (“Anatomy of Arts and
Sciences”; 1614), which was chiefly remarkable for the inclusion of an index. And
Johann Heinrich Alsted, who, like Martini, came from Herborn, compiled
an Encyclopaedia (1630) whose arrangement corresponds broadly to Matthias’s
classification of human knowledge.

Zara’s and Alsted’s encyclopaedias were organized systematically by classification. The

turning point came with Louis Moréri’s alphabetically arranged Grand Dictionnaire
historique (1674), which was especially strong in geographical and biographical
material. Its success was immediate; six editions were issued by 1691, each
incorporating much new contemporary information. English editions followed in 1694,
1701, and (a supplement) 1705. Other encyclopaedias
in England, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands acknowledged its inspiration.
The alphabetically arranged encyclopaedia in the vernacular had almost won the day, in
spite of the German scholar Daniel George Morhof’s modest success with his ill-
balanced Polyhistor Literarius, Philosophicus, et Practicus (“Literary, Philosophical,
and Practical History”; 1688–1708).

If there was any doubt concerning the more popular form of the encyclopaedia, the issue
of Antoine Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel des arts et sciences (1690) confirmed the
true nature of public taste. Furetière not only compiled a fine encyclopaedic dictionary,
but he emphasized the arts and the sciences, thus reflecting the rapidly growing public
interest in modern culture, science, and technology. If confirmation were still needed,
the Académie Française’s commissioning of Thomas Corneille to compile Le
Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences (1694), with its thorough
and authoritative treatment of these new encyclopaedic features, demonstrated that
even the more conservative scholars were by now keenly aware that a new spirit had
arisen. The period of the clerical encyclopaedia had ended, as the Franciscan friar
Vincenzo Maria Coronelli found when his Biblioteca Universale Sacro-Profano (1701–
06) ceased publication at volume 7 of a projected 45.

Pierre Bayle, in his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697), achieved a most

remarkable tour de force. Although his encyclopaedia purported to be an updating of the
information in Moréri, the entries were largely unexceptionable. The real originality of
his work lies in the profuse and scholarly footnotes and the commentaries that at times
were an amazing mixture of skepticism, blasphemy, and ribaldry. Bayle challenged

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orthodox ideas; his brilliant mind spared nothing. This approach heralded that of Denis
Diderot, and the distinguished writers who revised later editions—Prosper Marchand
and Pierre Desmaizeaux—continued in the same style.

The Lexicon Technicum (1704) of John Harris represented the powerful impact of the
work of the Royal Society (founded 1660). Here was all the equipment of the modern
encyclopaedia: excellent engraved plates, clear practical text, bibliographies appended
to the more important articles. So far, England had had to make do with translations of
French encyclopaedias. Harris’s emphasis on the need to include scientific and technical
subjects helped to reverse the trend. This process was completed by the issue
of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (1728). Like Harris, Chambers omitted people in
favour of more information on the arts and sciences, and he paid more attention to clear
expositions of ancient and modern philosophical systems. His admirably cross-
referenced work is universally recognized as the father of the modern encyclopaedia.

The French were well aware of these developments. By 1744 five editions of
Chambers’s Cyclopaedia had been issued. The Paris publisher André Le Breton saw a
ready market for a translation. The first proposals were a failure, however,
and Diderot was enlisted to plan what at that time was still essentially a translation on a
much broader basis. Under the hands of Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert the
concept changed. The Encyclopédie (1751–65) was a philosophical undertaking carried
out on a gigantic scale, and much of the writing was of a high standard. To the orthodox,
it appeared that the project had got out of hand, but there were 2,000 subscribers to the
first volume, and the subsequent scandals over the irreverent, authority-challenging
articles only added to the number of purchasers. The equivocal attitude of high
dignitaries in both church and court and the growing public dislike of the
encyclopaedia’s chief critics—the Jesuits—led to a complex situation in which official
disapproval and substantial private encouragement caused the production and fortunes
of the Encyclopédie and its producers to lurch dangerously from one crisis to another.
Curiously, Diderot did nothing to further the physical development of the
encyclopaedia; his contribution was to fire men’s minds with a willful guidance that
conformed to the country’s increasingly revolutionary spirit. As Voltaire said: “this vast
and immortal work seems to reproach mankind’s brief life span.”

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 Drawloom, engraving from Diderot's Encyclopédie, 18th century.Historical Pictures Service, Chicago

The shortcomings of the Encyclopédie were obvious. The essential ingredients of an

encyclopaedia, the entries on every conceivable subject, had been sacrificed to make
place for lengthy polemics on the controversial topics of the day. The Encyclopædia
Britannica was intended to improve on this, and, with all its shortcomings, the first
edition (1768–71) did exactly that. The achievement of its editors was the more
remarkable in that there were already several English encyclopaedias on the market.
The Scottish encyclopaedia, however, reflected the taste of the day better than any of its
competitors, for it was a completely new work and not just a remaking of Chambers and
Harris. There was much to criticize in the first edition, but the second (1777–84; dated
1778–83) was greatly improved, as were following editions.

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 Encyclopædia BritannicaFirst edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Meanwhile, Germany, at first largely dependent on translations of foreign

encyclopaedias, had produced the scholarly “Hübner” (1704), as it was known from the
name of the author of the preface in this first of the Konversationslexikon type. The
form appealed to the rapidly growing middle class of the country, who welcomed
encyclopaedias designed to provide them with an adequate cultural background for
polite society. Johann Theodor Jablonski’s illustrated Allgemeines Lexicon (1721)
continued in this same style, and similar works were compiled by the Swiss theologian
and philologist Jakob Christoph Iselin and Antonius Moratori (1727). Johann Heinrich
Zedler’s huge Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon (“The Great Comprehensive
Universal Lexicon”; 1732–50) was in the older tradition but is important for its accuracy
and its biographical and bibliographical material. An attempt to produce a German type
of the Encyclopédie in 1778–1807 was, however, a failure. Friedrich Arnold
Brockhaus recognized the real need of the German people. Reworking Renatus Gotthelf
Löbel’s bankrupt encyclopaedia, he produced his first Konversations-Lexikon (1796–
1811), thereby setting the pattern for at least half of all succeeding encyclopaedias
throughout the western world. Brief, well-designed articles tightly packed with facts,

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comprehensive coverage, and a reputation for accuracy and up-to-dateness were the
ingredients for one of the most successful of encyclopaedias.

The 19th century

Having served a long apprenticeship as a reviser of Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, Abraham

Rees at last produced a completely original and finely illustrated work, The New
Cyclopaedia (1802–20), the only serious rival to the Britannica in a generation that saw
some dozen “new” encyclopaedias rise and fall. What might have been the greatest
encyclopaedia of the century, the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (1817–45), failed
miserably because of the early withdrawal of its designer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and
subsequent financial troubles; but from it came the most notable contribution to the
philosophy of encyclopaedia making since Bacon—Coleridge’s profound treatise “On
Method” (1818).

Tourniquets and amputating instruments, engraving by Wilson Lowry from The New Cyclopaedia (1802–
20), edited by Abraham Rees.© Photos.com/Thinkstock

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To the principal influences on the compilation of encyclopaedias—Bacon, Diderot,
the Britannica, and Brockhaus—must be added that of the Frenchman Pierre Larousse.
His completely original approach to encyclopaedia making has given the series of
encyclopaedias that bear his name a unique reputation. Emphasis throughout has been
on readability; style has never been sacrificed to conciseness, and the successive editors
of Larousse have paid very close attention to the changing public taste among French
readers concerning the presentation of information.

The advent of the work of Noah Webster was fully as epoch-making as that of Brockhaus
and Larousse. Webster’s informative American Dictionary of the English
Language (1828) was encyclopaedic in character, but he avoided the long entries for the
more important subjects that were such a feature of Larousse. Webster’s approach
appealed to the American taste and captured a huge market that has only increased with
the years.

Brockhaus soon faced opposition, for his encyclopaedia was stronger on the humanities
than on scientific and technical subjects. Joseph Meyer’s Der grosse Conversations-
Lexikon (1840–52) rectified this imbalance and was the first of a highly successful series
that competed vigorously with Brockhaus for 100 years. In
addition, Herder’s Conversations-Lexikon (1853–57) and its subsequent editions
provided the Catholic counterbalance in a country where Protestants and Catholics were
almost equal in numbers.

The market for encyclopaedias in 19th-century Great Britain seemed inexhaustible, but
many publishers lost money by putting out works that failed to capture the public’s
fancy. An exception was Chambers’s Encyclopaedia (1860–68), which was unconnected
with Ephraim Chambers’s classic. Influenced by childhood access to a copy of
the Britannica, Robert Chambers and his brother William compiled an original
work, Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, that took the Konversationslexikon form and thus
found a new market that has continued to the present day.

Beyond Webster’s work, a wide variety of encyclopaedias appeared in the United States
during the 19th century, ranging from reprints of British encyclopaedias to homegrown
works such as The New American Cyclopaedia (1858–63) and The People’s Cyclopedia
of Universal Knowledge (1881). Perhaps as many as two dozen encyclopaedias were
available to American readers. The Britannica was among them, and its ninth edition
(1875–89) was much republished in authorized and pirated forms.

In the first half of the 19th century there was increasing activity in other countries too.
Poland produced the Encyklopedia Powszechna (1858–68), known as “Orgelbrand”
after its publisher. The Hungarians had followed the Bohemian Slovník
naučný (“Scientific Dictionary”; 1860–90) with the Egyetemes magyar
encyclopaedia (“Universal Hungarian Encyclopaedia”; 1861–76). The Russians had
produced half an encyclopaedia, V.N. Tatishchev’s Leksikon rossyskoy (“Russian
lexicon”), in 1793, and then issued A. Starchevsky’s Spravochny entsiklopedichesky
slovar (“Encyclopaedic Reference Dictionary”; 1847–55) on the Brockhaus model. More
important was the famous Entsiklopedichesky slovar (“Encyclopaedic Dictionary”;

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1895), which became known as “Granat” after the Granat Russian Bibliographical
Institute that produced it. A later edition (1910–48) of “Granat,” in 58 volumes, was not
exported from the Soviet Union. Modeled on the Britannica, this edition contained
many important articles, such as Lenin’s contribution on “Marx” and on “The Russian
19th-Century Agrarian Problem.” Successive ideological changes in Russian society
caused many changes in the text of “Granat,” and it long remained one of the most
inaccessible of all Russian encyclopaedias outside the Soviet Union.

Larousse did not go unchallenged. Inspired by the French politician Ferdinand-Camille

Dreyfus, La Grande Encyclopédie (1886–1902) provided France with a superb,
authoritative, and comprehensive work, well documented, and of excellent scholarship
throughout. In Denmark the century ended with the issue of no fewer than three new
good multivolume encyclopaedias: Allers (1892–99), Hagerups (1892–1900),
and Salmonsens (1893–1911), a situation without parallel in the history of
encyclopaedias. During the course of the century practically every feature of the modern
encyclopaedia had been introduced, and editorial standards had at times risen to a
height that modern editors can only envy.

The 20th century and beyond

In 1890–1906 a Russian edition of Brockhaus, which subsequently had considerable

success, was issued from the St. Petersburg office of Brockhaus. In contrast, S.N.
Yushakov designed his Bolshaya entsiklopedya (“Great Encyclopaedia”; 1900–09) on
the “Meyer” model. After “Granat” the next important encyclopaedia was the 65-
volume Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopedya (“Great Soviet Encyclopaedia”; 1926–47),
which was eventually discredited; the second edition (1949–58) had a Marxist-Leninist
approach but was less biassed on nonpolitical subjects. It represented almost the whole
of the Soviet Union’s cultural resources: 8,000 scholars contributed articles, and the
appended bibliographies were truly international in scope. One complete volume was
devoted to the Soviet Union. The yearbooks that supplemented this encyclopaedia were
very well produced and maintained the high standards of the original work. From 1970
to 1978 a 30-volume third edition was issued. The reduction in size was accomplished by
editing and the use of a smaller typeface. Early reviews indicated that the quality of the
work was similar to that of the second edition. From 1973 to 1983 Macmillan released an
English translation of the third Russian edition.

There was also a series of editions of the much smaller Malaya sovetskaya
entsiklopedya (“The Little Soviet Encyclopaedia”), first issued in 1928–31.

In the United States, the first edition of The New International Encyclopaedia was
issued in 1902–04 and was subsequently supplemented by yearbooks. The
Encyclopedia Americana, which traced its ancestry to an English-
language adaptation (1829–33) of the seventh edition of Brockhaus, took on new
strength in 1902 when the editor of Scientific American, Frederick C. Beach, was
appointed editor of the Americana. It has enjoyed growing success through its policy of

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following the continuous revision system, and yearbooks have supplemented it from
1923 onward. In 1950–51 a completely new American work, Collier’s Encyclopedia,
appeared in 20 volumes, and subsequent editions have been supplemented by
yearbooks since 1960. Collier’s was noted for its large number of illustrations and maps.

The “Espasa,” the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana (1905–33), like

the Enciclopedia italiana, eschewed revision in favour of a series of sizable
supplements. One complete volume was devoted to Spain and was separately revised
and reissued from time to time. A smaller encyclopaedia, the Salvat universal
diccionario enciclopédico (first issued in 1907–13), was revised at frequent intervals.
Another major Spanish encyclopaedia, the Enciclopedia labor (first issued 1955–60),
devoted one volume each to major subject areas, and an index volume provided the key
to the total contents. This encyclopaedia was notable for the attention it paid to every
Spanish-speaking part of the world.

One of the most important of all encyclopaedias, the Enciclopedia italiana di scienze,
lettere, ed arti (1929–39), was famous for its lavish production, its superb illustrations,
and its lengthy, scholarly, and well-documented articles. Even its defense of
Fascist ideology was not allowed to impinge on the general impartiality of the text.
Supplements were issued after World War II. The postwar Dizionario enciclopedico
italiano (1955–61), issued by the same publishers, was a much smaller, well-illustrated
work. The Enciclopedia europea was released in Milan between 1976 and 1984.
Although consisting largely of brief articles, it had numerous signed long articles of good
quality. In Germany the three giants of the German encyclopaedia world—Brockhaus,
“Meyer,” “Herder”—continued to produce new editions in the 20th century.

In spite of the continuing popularity of Larousse, France produced three other

encyclopaedias of note in the 20th century. The Encyclopédie française (begun 1935)
was an outstanding collection of monographs by well-known scholars and specialists,
arranged in classified form and available in loose-leaf binders, supplemented by a
continuously revised index. Its 21 volumes, each under the direction of a different
authority, dealt with (1) human mental tools (logical thought, language, and
mathematics); (2) physics; (3) heaven and earth; (4) life; (5) living beings; (6) human
beings (the normal and the sick); (7) the human species; (8) the study of the mind; (9)
the economic and social universe; (10) the modern state; (11) international life; (12)
chemical science and industry; (13) industry and agriculture; (14) daily life; (15)
education and learning theory; (16–17) arts and literatures; (18) the written word; (19)
philosophy and religion; and (20) the world in its development (history, evolution,
prospective); the 21st volume contained an index. The articles were notable for their
almost total concentration on contemporary issues in the fields considered.

The Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (begun 1955) was an encyclopaedic series, each work
(some in more than one volume) being a self-contained treatment of a broad subject
field written in narrative form.

One of the most interesting new encyclopaedias was the Encyclopaedia

Universalis (first issued 1968–74), edited by Claude Grégory and owned by the French

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Book Club and Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (since 2005 solely by Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc.). This work, inspired by L’Encyclopédie, eschewed the inclusion of
minor items in favour of extensive and very well-illustrated articles on important
subjects, and it paid special attention to modern science and technology. It was
accompanied by a symposium and an elaborate thesaurus-index.

Encyclopaedia Universalis was doubly notable as the product of a contemporary

publishing phenomenon known in the industry as “coproduction.” The term is applied
in general to the collaborative efforts of publishing concerns in two or more countries
that have combined forces to produce an encyclopaedia for sale in one of the countries
or, with modifications to the volumes, in two or several countries. Successful examples
of coproduction in the 20th century include the Buritanika Kokusai Dai Hyakka
Jiten (Britannica International Encyclopædia) in Japan and the Concise Encyclopædia
Britannica in China (both discussed below). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., in addition,
was similarly involved in the development of the Taiwan edition of the Concise
Encyclopædia Britannica in traditional Chinese characters (1989); the
Korean Britannica World Encyclopædia; the Turkish AnaBritannica; two Spanish-
language encyclopaedias, the Enciclopedia Barsa de consulta fácil and the Enciclopedia
hispánica; the Portuguese-language Enciclopédia Barsa and Enciclopédia Mirador
Internacional, a scholarly set first published in Brazil in 1975; Il Modulo, published in
Italy; Britannica Hungarica Világenciklopédia (2002), published in Budapest;
and Britannica Edycja Polska (1997–2005), published in Poznań, Pol. Coproduction
was taken worldwide with localized editions of the one-volume Britannica Concise
Encyclopedia, first published in English in 2002, based on Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Encyclopedia (2000), itself a coproduction between Britannica and Merriam-
Webster, Inc. Within a decade, versions of Britannica Concise augmented with local
content were planned in Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Macedonian, Malayalam, Romanian,
Russian, Spanish, Tamil, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Other major instances of coproduction involved The New Caxton Encyclopedia, which
originated in Italy with Istituto Geografico de Agostini and subsequently appeared in
Great Britain, first sold in serial parts as Purnell’s New English Encyclopedia (1966)
and then in a bound set of 18 volumes (1966); in France there appeared a version
called Alpha: La Grande Encyclopédie Universelle en Couleurs, and in Spain a version
called Monitor. The American-made The Random House Encyclopedia was adapted
and translated in various languages and under various names for distribution in several
countries.

By the 21st century virtually every Western country had domestically produced or
released either a single-volume or a multivolume encyclopaedia in its native tongue.
Many encyclopaedias were available additionally, and some solely, in CD-ROM, DVD,
and online formats.

Encyclopaedias in the East

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China

The contribution from the East to the history of encyclopaedias is distinctive and covers
a longer period than that of the West. The Chinese have produced encyclopaedias for
approximately 2,000 years, but traditionally they differ from the modern Western
encyclopaedia in that they are mainly anthologies of significant literature with some
elements of the dictionary. Compiled by scholars of eminence, they have been revised
rather than replaced over hundreds of years. In the main, they followed a classified form
of arrangement; very often their chief use was to aid candidates for the civil service. The
first known Chinese encyclopaedia, the Huanglan (“Imperial Anthology”), was prepared
by order of the emperor about AD 220. No part of this work has survived. Part of
the Bianzhu (“Stringed Pearls of Literature”), prepared about 600, is still extant. About
620 the Yiwen leiju (“Anthology of Art and Literature”) was prepared by Ouyang Xun
(557–641) in 100 chapters divided into 47 sections. The Beitang shuchao (“Extracts for
Books”) of Yu Shinan (558–638) was more substantial and paid particular attention to
details of the organization of public administration. An annotated edition, edited by
Kong Guangdao, was published in 1880.

The Chuxueji (“Entry into Learning”) was a modest work compiled about 700 by Xujian
(659–729) and his colleagues. A more important book was
the Tongdian (“Comprehensive Statutes”) compiled by Du Yu (735–812), a writer on
government and economics. Completed about 801, it contained nine sections:
economics, examinations and degrees, government, rites and ceremonies, music, the
army, law, political geography, national defense. In 1273 it was supplemented by Ma
Duanlin’s enormous and highly regarded Wenxian tongkao (“General Study of the
Literary Remains”), which included a good bibliography. Supplements to this work were
published in the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries. Under the order of the second Song
emperor, Song Taizong, the statesman Li Fang organized the compilation of the
vast Taiping yulan (“Imperially Inspected Anthology of the Taiping
Era”; see Researcher’s Note: Taiping yulan), which included extracts from many works
of literary and scientific standing that are no longer extant. In 1568–72 the Taiping
yulan was revised and reprinted from movable type; a new edition revised by Yuanyuan
appeared in 1812. The Cefu yuangui (c. 1013), particularly strong in historical and
biographical subjects, was almost as large as the Taiping yulan.

The historian Zheng Qiao (1108–66) compiled the Tongzhi (“General Treatises”), an
original work with a strong personal contribution; the printed edition (1747) was in 118
volumes. One of the richest and most important of all Chinese encyclopaedias,
the Yuhai (“Sea of Jade”), was compiled about 1267 by the renowned Song scholar Wang
Yinglin (1223–92) and was reprinted in 240 volumes in 1738.

What was probably the largest encyclopaedia ever compiled, the Yongle dadian (“The
Great Canon of the Yongle Era”), was issued at the beginning of the 15th century.
Unfortunately, only a very small part of its 22,937 chapters has survived; these were
published in 1963. A number of small encyclopaedias were issued in the 16th century,
but the next important event was the publication of the small but profusely

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illustrated Sancai tuhui (1607–09), compiled by Wang Qi and his son Wang Siyi. In
1704–11 the Chinese literary encyclopaedia Peiwen yunfu was compiled by order of the
emperor Kangxi; this was supplemented by the Yunfu shiyi (1720). Other works ordered
by the emperor include the Bianzi leibian (1726) and the Zishi jinghua (1727). In 1726
the huge Gujin tushu jicheng (“Collection of Pictures and Writings”) was published by
order of the emperor. Edited by the scholar Chen Menglei, it filled more than 750,000
pages and attempted to embody the whole of the Chinese cultural heritage.

At the turn of the century, a number of encyclopaedias were issued. Wang Qi’s Shiwu
yuanhui, which covered well over 2,000 topics, was compiled in 1796. Lu
Fengzuo’s Xiaozhilu (1804) is particularly valuable for its attention to technical terms,
which previous works had ignored. Chen Wei’s Jingzhuan II (1804) concentrated on
history and the great Chinese classics, whereas Wang Chenglie’s Qiming jishu (1806) is
stronger in biographical material. Dai Zhaochun compiled the Sishu wujing leidian
jicheng (1887), a historical work for the use of civil-service candidates. Wei Song’s Yishi
jishi (1888) had actually been compiled 65 years previously, but it paid far more
attention to practical matters. The Jiutongtong (1902) of Liu Keyi was in large measure
a reassembly of material in the older encyclopaedias in a more efficient classification. A
more important work of the period is the largely historical and biographical Ershisishi
jiu tong zhengdian leiyao hebian (1902). The Qingchao xu wenxian tongkao (1905),
compiled by Liu Jinzao, was revised and enlarged in 400 volumes in 1921. It includes
contemporary material on fiscal, administrative, and industrial affairs and gives some
attention to technical matters. Lu Erkui’s Ciyuan (1915), with a supplement issued in
1931, was the first really modern Chinese encyclopaedia and set the style for nearly all
later works of this nature.

In 1980, officials of the Greater Encyclopedia of China Publishing House and

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., announced an agreement under which
the Micropædia of the 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica would be translated
into Chinese for distribution in China. The 10-volume set for this project, The Concise
Encyclopædia Britannica, was published serially in 1985–86. A 20-volume revised
edition, Encyclopædia Britannica International Chinese Edition, was published in 1999
and substantially revised in 2007.

Japan

In the Edo, or Tokugawa, era (1603–1867) there appeared a kind of encyclopaedia that
consisted of extracts of major works in Japanese and Chinese. Kojiruien (51 volumes,
1879–1914) and Nihon-hyakka-daijiten, or the “Great Japanese Encyclopaedia” (10
volumes, 1908–19) were somewhat more akin to modern encyclopaedias but were
mostly compilations of scientific works. More complete general encyclopaedias
appeared in the Showa period (1926–89); Dai-hyakka (28 volumes, 1931–
35), Kokumin-hyakka (15 volumes, 1934–37), Sekai-daihyakka (24 volumes, 1955–68),
and Japonica (19 volumes, 1967–72) are examples of well-compiled works.
The Buritanika Kokusai Dai Hyakka Jiten, or Britannica International

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Encyclopædia (29 volumes), which began publication in 1972 and was completed in
1975, was the joint creation of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., and the Tokyo
Broadcasting System acting together as TBS/Britannica Company, Tokyo. Unlike most
Japanese-language encyclopaedias, which consisted largely of simple short entries, its
main body consisted of 20 volumes of lengthy systematic entries (the main body was
fully revised in 1988). Other sections of the four-part set included a six-volume
reference guide, consisting of many thousands of short factual entries; a reader’s guide;
a study guide; and an index. There were also supplemental yearbooks. After 2006 the
encyclopaedia was available solely in electronic form, as Encyclopædia Britannica
Online Japan.

The Arab world

The early encyclopaedias written in Arabic can be roughly divided into two classes:
those designed for people who wished to be well informed and to make full use of their
cultural heritage, and those for the rapidly growing number of official administrators.
The latter type of encyclopaedia originated when the Arabs established their rule
through so many parts of the Mediterranean region. The first true encyclopaedia was the
work of Ibn Qutaybah (828–889), a teacher and philologist, who dealt with his topics by
quoting traditional aphorisms, historical examples, and old Arabic poems. The
arrangement and contents of his Kitāb ʿuyūn al-akhbār (“The Book of Choice
Narratives”) set the pattern for many later encyclopaedias. The 10 books were arranged
in the following order: power, war, nobility, character, learning and eloquence,
asceticism, friendship, prayers, food, women. Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih of Córdoba improved on
Ibn Qutaybah’s work in his ʿIqd al-farīd (“The Precious Necklace”) by including more
contemporary items of note.

What has often mistakenly been referred to as the first encyclopaedia, the Mafātīḥ al-
ʿUlūm (“Keys to the Sciences”), was compiled in 975–997 by the Persian scholar and
statesman al-Khwārizmī, who was well aware of the content of the more important
Greek writings. He divided his work into two sections: indigenous knowledge
(jurisprudence, scholastic philosophy, grammar, secretarial duties, prosody and poetic
art, history) and foreign knowledge (philosophy, logic, medicine, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, music, mechanics, alchemy). The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (“Brethren of Purity”), a
religious or political party founded at Al-Baṣrah in the 10th century, published
the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa khillān al-wafāʾ (“Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and
Loyal Friends”), a remarkable work that consisted of 52 pamphlets written by five
authors, comprising all the knowledge available in their milieu. The work included (1)
mathematics, geography, music, logic, and ethics; (2) the natural sciences and
philosophy; (3) metaphysics; and (4) religion, astrology, and magic. A complete edition
was published in 1887–89.

The Egyptian historian and civil servant al-Nuwayrī (1272–1332) compiled one of the
best-known encyclopaedias of the Mamlūk period, the Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-
adab (“The Aim of the Intelligent in the Art of Letters”), a work of almost 9,000 pages.

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It comprised: (1) geography, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, geology; (2) man
(anatomy, folklore, conduct, politics); (3) zoology; (4) botany; (5) history. A complete
edition was issued in 1923. The Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār (“Paths
of Discernment in the Realms of the Great Cities”) of al-ʿUmarī (1301–48) was chiefly
strong on history, geography, and poetry. A third Egyptian, al-Qalqashandī (1355/56–
1418), compiled a more important and well-organized encyclopaedia, Ṣubḥ al-
aʿshā (“The Dawn for the Blind”), that covered geography, political history, natural
history, zoology, mineralogy, cosmography, and time measurement. Al-Ibshīhī (1388–
c. 1446) compiled a very individual encyclopaedia, the Mustaṭraf fī kull fann
mustaẓraf (“A Quest for Attainment in Each Fine Art”), that covered the Islamic
religion, conduct, law, spiritual qualities, work, natural history, music, food, and
medicine. At the turn of the Arab fortunes, al-Ibshīhī had recapitulated all that was best
in their culture.

The Persian jurist Dawānī (1427–1502/03) published a kind of encyclopaedia,

entitled Unmūdhaj al-ʿulūm (“Program of the Sciences”), that consisted of documented
questions and answers and technical inventions on a very wide range of subjects. Al-
Shīrazī (died 1542) soon issued a refutation to it, the Maqālat al-radd ʿalā unmūdag
ʿalā unmūdhaj al-ʿulūm al-jalāliyyah (“Treatise on the Refutation of Jalāl [al-Dīn
Dawānī’s] Unmūdhaj al-ʿulūm”). The Majmaʿ multaqā al-zuhūr bī rawḍah min al-
manẓūm wa al manthūr (1524; “Collection of Tangled Flowers in the Garden of Poetry
and Prose”) of al-Ḥanafī comprised an encyclopaedic survey and description of the
various branches of knowledge, with an appendix containing an alphabetical list of the
names of God. In Lebanon, Buṭrus al-Bustānī and his sons compiled the Dāʾirat al-
maʿārif (1876–1900; “The Circle of Knowledge”). A second edition (1923–25) was
prepared by Muḥammad Farīd Wajdī, and a third edition was begun by Fuʾād Afrām al-
Bustānī in 1956. Arabic encyclopaedias, both general and topical, were widely available
by the start of the 21st century.

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