Cyclopædia, Or An Universal Dictionary Of Arts And Sciences
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''Cyclopædia: or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences'' is a British
encyclopedia 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 article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...
prepared by Ephraim Chambers and first published in 1728. Six more editions appeared between 1728 and 1751, and there was a ''Supplement'' in 1753. The ''Cyclopædia'' was one of the first general encyclopedias produced in English.


Noteworthy features

The title page of the first edition summarizes the author’s aims: The first edition included numerous
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 ...
s meant to connect articles scattered by the use of alphabetical order, a dedication to the king, George II, and a philosophical preface at the beginning of Volume 1. Among other things, the preface gives an analysis of forty-seven divisions of knowledge, with classed lists of the articles belonging to each, intended to serve as a table of contents and also as a directory indicating the order in which the articles should be read.


Printing history

A second edition appeared in 1738 in two volumes in folio, with 2,466 pages. This edition was supposedly retouched and amended in a thousand places, with a few added articles and some enlarged articles. Chambers was prevented from doing more because booksellers were alarmed by a bill in
Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
containing a clause to oblige publishers of all improved editions of books to print their improvements separately. The bill, after passing the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
, was unexpectedly thrown out by the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
; but fearing that it might be revived, the booksellers thought it best to retreat, though more than twenty sheets had been printed. Five other editions were published in London from 1739 to 1751–1752. An edition was also published in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
in 1742; this and the London editions were all two volumes in folio. An Italian translation appearing in
Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
, 1748–1749, 4to, nine volumes, was the first complete Italian encyclopaedia. When Chambers was in France in 1739, he rejected very favorable proposals to publish an edition there dedicated to
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
. Chambers' work was carefully done and popular. However, it had defects and omissions, as he was well aware; by his death on 15 May 1740, he had collected and arranged materials for seven new volumes. George Lewis Scott was employed by the booksellers to select articles for the press and to supply others, but he left before the job was finished. The job was then given to John Hill. The ''Supplement'' was published in London in 1753 in two folio volumes with 3307 pages and 12 plates. Hill was a botanist, and the botanical part, which had been weak in the ''Cyclopaedia'', was the best. Abraham Rees, a nonconformist minister, published a revised and enlarged edition in 1778–1788, with the supplement and improvements incorporated. It was published in London as a folio of five volumes, 5,010 pages ( not paginated), and 159 plates. It was published in 418 numbers at 6d. each. Rees claimed to have added more than 4,400 new articles. At the end, he gave an index of articles, classed under 100 heads, numbering about 57,000 and filling 80 pages. The heads, with 39 cross references, were arranged alphabetically.


Precursors

Among the precursors of Chambers's ''Cyclopaedia'' was John Harris's '' Lexicon Technicum'' of 1704 (later editions from 1708 to 1744). By its title and content, it was "An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves." While Harris's work is often classified as a technical dictionary, it also took material from Newton and Halley, among others.


Successors

Chambers's ''Cyclopaedia'' in turn became the inspiration for the landmark ''
Encyclopédie , better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...
'' of
Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during th ...
and
Jean le Rond d'Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopé ...
, which owed its inception to a proposed French translation of Chambers's work begun in 1744 by John Mills, assisted by Gottfried Sellius. The later '' Chambers's Encyclopaedia'' (1860–1868) had no connection to Ephraim Chambers's work but was the product of Robert Chambers and his brother William.


References


Further reading

* *Bocast, Alexander. ''Chambers on Definition''. McLean: Berkeley Bridge Press, 2016. (). *Bradshaw, Lael Ely. "Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia." ''Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Nine Predecessors of the Encyclopédie''. Ed. Frank Kafker. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1981. 123–137. (). *Collison, Robert. ''Encyclopædias: Their History Throughout the Ages''. New York: Hafner, 1966. *Kafker, Frank. A. ''Notable Encyclopedias of the Late Eighteenth Century: Eleven Successors of the Encyclopédie''. Oxford : Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1994. *Kolb, Gwin J. and James H. Sledd. "Johnson's 'Dictionary' and Lexicographical Tradition." ''Modern Philology'' 50.3 (Feb. 1953): 171–194. *Mack, Ruth. "The Historicity of Johnson's Lexicographer." ''Representations'' 76 (Fall 2001): 61–87. *Shorr, Phillip. ''Science and Superstition in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of the Treatment of Science in Two Encyclopedias of 1725–1750''. New York: Columbia, 1932. *Walsh, S. Patraig. "Cyclopaedia." ''Anglo-American General Encyclopedias: A Historical Bibliography, 1703–1967''. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1968. 38–39. *Yeo, Richard. "The Best Book in the Universe": Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia. In ''Encyclopædic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture.'' Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 120–169. () *Yeo, Richard R. "A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia (1728) as "the Best Book in the Universe."" ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', v. 64 (1), 2003. pp. 61–72. ()


External links


Chambers' ''Cyclopaedia''
1728, 2 volumes, with the 1753 supplement, 2 volumes; digitized by th
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center

Chambers' ''Cyclopaedia''
1728, 2 volumes, articles are categorized.
Searchable 4th edition (1741)
digitized at the
University of Chicago Library The University of Chicago Library is the library system of the University of Chicago, located on the university's campus in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the seventh largest academic library and the fourth largest private library in th ...
as part of The ARTFL Project. *
Cyclopaedia, or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Containing an Explication of the Terms, and an Account of the Things Signified Thereby, in the Several Arts, Both Liberal and Mechanical, and the Several Sciences, Human and Divine
' sixth edition, 2 volumes; London: Printed for W. Innys et al., 1750 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences 1728 non-fiction books 1738 non-fiction books 1739 non-fiction books 1751 non-fiction books 1752 non-fiction books 1753 non-fiction books 1778 non-fiction books 18th-century encyclopedias British encyclopedias English-language encyclopedias Reference works in the public domain George II of Great Britain