''Focus'' is an

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

first published in

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

in five volumes 1958–1960, later extended with additional volumes, republished in several editions, and translated to

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

. Based on inspiration from the richly illustrated 1947 edition of the American ''

World Book Encyclopedia The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is designed to cover major areas of knowledge uniformly, but it shows particular strength in scientific, technical, historical and medical subjects. ''World Book'' wa ...

'', the plan for Focus as conceived by Sven Lidman (born 1921) was based on two principles: # a set of highly instructional and internationally reusable illustrations should be produced first, to which text could be written later in various languages, and # the basic encyclopedia should be compact (only 3 or 4 volumes) to which specialized add-on volumes from a series (Sports in Focus, This year in Focus, etc.) could be combined ("Kombinationslexikon statt Konversationslexikon"), making it easier to cover different market segments. Sven Lidman left his previous employer in 1955 and took this new idea to the Swedish publishing house

Almqvist & Wiksell Almqvist & Wiksell is a former Swedish printing and publishing company. Since 1990 it is a trademark owned by the publishing company Liber. Almqvist & Wiksell originated from the acquisition of the Uppsala company Edquist & Berglunds tryckeri by R ...

, but only after also getting a letter of intent from

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

publisher

Bertelsmann Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA () is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and ...

was he able to get his employer started. Being the first richly illustrated encyclopedia in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

(and several other countries), the sales were a given success. The idea of only reusing the illustrations failed, as most contracting publishers chose to translate most of the text as well. A fifth volume containing an index, thesaurus and

cross-reference The term cross-reference (abbreviation: xref) can refer to either: * An instance within a document which refers to related information elsewhere in the same document. In both printed and online dictionaries cross-references are important because ...

was added to the basic encyclopedia, not least because this increased the total "number of entries" from 40,000 (in the main volumes) to 100,000 (in the index), one of the strongest sales arguments for encyclopedias. Sven Lidman left A&W in 1963 to continue his work in Swedish lexicography elsewhere. His autobiography ''Uppslagsboken och jag'' was published in 1987.

External links

''Focus''
— information in Swedish about the work and its Swedish editions, from Christofer Psilander's websit
''Svenska Uppslagsverk''
{{Authority control Swedish encyclopedias Portuguese-language encyclopedias Spanish encyclopedias Danish encyclopedias French encyclopedias Norwegian encyclopedias 1958 non-fiction books 20th-century encyclopedias