The () was a 19th-century German

encyclopaedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

published by Johann Samuel Ersch and Johann Gottfried Gruber, therefore also known as the ''Ersch-Gruber''. One of the most ambitious encyclopaedia projects ever, it remains uncompleted. It was designed and begun in 1813 by Professor Ersch to satisfy the wants of Germans, only in part supplied by foreign works. It was stopped by

the Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

until 1816, when Professor Gottlieb Hufeland joined, but he died on 25 November 1817, while the specimen part was at press. The first volume appeared in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

in 1818. The editors of the different sections at various times were some of the best-known men of learning in Germany, including Gruber, Moritz Hermann Eduard Meier,

Hermann Brockhaus Hermann Brockhaus (January 28, 1806 – January 5, 1877) was a German oriental studies, Orientalist born in Amsterdam. He was a leading authority on Sanskrit and Persian languages. He was the son of publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus and ...

, W. Müller and Andreas Gottlieb Hoffmann of Jena. Naturalist Eduard Poeppig wrote most of the articles on the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. All articles bear the authors' names, and those not ready in time were placed at the end of their letter. The work is divided into three sections: # A–G (99 volumes published, complete) : # H–N (only the first 43 volumes published, through ) # O–Z (only the first 25 volumes published, through ) From its beginning through 1830, the was published at Leipzig by Johan Friedrich Gleditsch. From 1831 until publication ceased in 1889, the was published by

Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus (4 May 1772 – 20 August 1823) was a German encyclopedia publisher and editor, famed for publishing the '' Conversations-Lexikon'', which is now published as the Brockhaus encyclopedia. Biography Brockhaus was edu ...

, also of Leipzig. Gleditsch published volumes 1 through 21 of the first section; volumes 1 through 7 of the second, but only the first volume of the third section. Brockhaus published the remaining volumes through 1889. By 1889, when the project was abandoned, the had reached 167 volumes. The article about Greece alone covered 3,668 pages, spanning eight volumes.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

''Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste''
(scanned page images) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Allgemeine Encyclopadie der Wissenschaften und Kunste German encyclopedias Encyclopedias in German 1818 non-fiction books Reference works in the public domain 19th-century encyclopedias