Past owners have included, in chronological order, the Scottish printers
Colin Macfarquhar and
Andrew Bell, the Scottish bookseller
Archibald Constable, the Scottish publisher
A. & C. Black,
Horace Everett Hooper,
Sears Roebuck,
William Benton, and
Jacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire residing in
New York. Recent advances in
information technology and the rise of electronic encyclopaedias such as
Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite,
Encarta and Wikipedia have reduced the demand for print encyclopaedias.
Editions The
Encyclopaedia Britannica has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd edition and to the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions as a group (see the
Table below). The 5th and 6th editions were reprints of the 4th, and the 10th edition was only a supplement to the 9th, just as the 12th and 13th editions were supplements to the 11th. For the 15th edition (1974), the
Britannica underwent a massive reorganization and became the
New Encyclopaedia Britannica. The 14th and 15th editions were edited every year throughout their runs, so that later printings of each were quite different from early ones. Throughout its history, the
Britannica has had two aims: to be an excellent reference book, and to provide educational material. In 1974, the 15th edition adopted a third goal: to systematize all human knowledge. The history of the
Britannica can be divided into five eras, punctuated by changes in management or reorganization of the encyclopaedia.
1768–1824 article on Egypt, which included the translation of the
hieroglyphs on the
Rosetta Stone (pictured). In the first era (1st–6th editions, 1768–1824), the
Britannica was managed and published by its founders,
Colin Macfarquhar and
Andrew Bell, and by
Archibald Constable. The
Britannica was first published in serial instalments between December 1768 and about August 1771 in
Edinburgh as the
Encyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan. The new plan in question was an organizational one, namely to include two kinds of typographically distinct entries (articles and longer "
treatises") in a single alphabetical sequence. In principle, "treatises" were to cover the arts and sciences, leaving articles to deal with their subordinate objects. The idea may have been inspired by
Dennis de Coetlogon's
Universal History of Arts and Sciences, an alphabetical encyclopaedia that contained only treatises. Regardless, the
Britannica continued to intermix formally distinguished articles and treatises through the 10th edition. According to Arthur Herman's book
How the Scots Invented the Modern World, the
Encyclopaedia Britannica is one of the most enduring legacies of the
Scottish Enlightenment. It is important to be more specific, however, about how the early
Britannica was and was not Scottish and a monument to the Scottish Enlightenment. The two publishers and
William Smellie, whom they engaged to compile the work, were all Scots. Much of the first edition was compiled by Smellie from Scottish sources. At the same time, despite working in Edinburgh, the centre of the Scottish Enlightenment, neither Smellie nor
James Tytler, the editor of the second edition, arranged for contributions from any local luminaries. Nor does the work seem to have been much noticed by participants in the Scottish Enlightenment before its third edition. Likewise, it is significant that the title chosen was the
Encyclopaedia Britannica (and not the
Encyclopaedia Scotorum, or 'Scottish Encyclopaedia'). Indeed, by the time of the third edition, the
Britannica was starting to evolve into a
symbol of
Britishness. In this era, the
Britannica grew significantly in size, sales, and reputation. Just as important were changes to the way it was compiled and edited. On his tombstone, Smellie was characterized as the editor of the first edition of the
Britannica, but he was not an editor in anything like the sense in which Macvey Napier, who edited the
Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions, was. Smellie compiled nearly all the articles in the first edition himself, although we know he had minor help from at least one contributor, James Anderson, who wrote the articles "Dictionary," "Pneumatics," and "Smoke." For the third edition and its
Supplement, editors still compiled the bulk of the articles, but they were assisted by dozens of collaborators. We know of thirty-five who wrote for the third edition, for example, some of them named in the preface, including the chemist
Joseph Black and the natural philosopher
John Robison. Then, by the time of the
Supplement, Napier had become mostly a managing editor. He still wrote some articles, but his main job was recruiting collaborators, for the prospectus stipulated that "the various articles, in the Supplement, shall be written by the most Eminent Men, in the different departments of Science." Several other encyclopaedias competed with the
Britannica throughout this period, among them editions of Ephraim Chambers' and
Abraham Rees's
Cyclopædia,
Coleridge's Encyclopædia Metropolitana, and
David Brewster's
Edinburgh Encyclopædia.
1827–1901 During the second era (7th–9th editions, 1827–1901), the
Britannica was managed by the Edinburgh publishing firm
A & C Black. Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notably
Macvey Napier, others were attracted by the
Britannica reputation. The contributors often came from other countries and included the world's most respected authorities in their fields. A general index of all articles was included for the first time in the 7th edition, a practice maintained until 1974. Production of the 9th edition was overseen by Thomas Spencer Baynes, the first English-born editor-in-chief. Dubbed the "Scholar's Edition", the 9th edition is the most scholarly of all
Britannicas. After 1880, Baynes was assisted by
William Robertson Smith. No biographies of living persons were included.
James Clerk Maxwell and
Thomas Huxley were special advisors on science. However, by the close of the 19th century, the 9th edition was outdated, and the
Britannica faced financial difficulties.
1901–1973 '' In the third era (10th–14th editions, 1901–1973), the
Britannica was managed by American businessmen who introduced
direct marketing and
door-to-door sales. The American owners gradually simplified articles, making them less scholarly for a mass market. The 10th edition was an eleven-volume supplement (including one each of maps and an index) to the 9th, numbered as volumes 25–35, but the 11th edition was a completely new work; its owner, Horace Hooper, lavished enormous effort on the project. Benton became chairman of the board and managed the
Britannica until his death in 1973. Benton set up the Benton Foundation, which managed the
Britannica until 1996, and whose sole beneficiary was the University of Chicago. In 1968, the
Britannica celebrated
its bicentennial.
1974–1994 In the fourth era (1974–1994), the
Britannica introduced its 15th edition, which was reorganized into three parts: the , the , and the . Under Mortimer J. Adler (member of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica since its inception in 1949, and its chair from 1974; director of editorial planning for the 15th edition of
Britannica from 1965), the
Britannica sought not only to be a good reference work and educational tool, but to systematize all human knowledge. The absence of a separate index and the grouping of articles into parallel encyclopaedias (the and ) provoked a "firestorm of criticism" of the initial 15th edition. In response, the 15th edition was completely reorganized and indexed for a re-release in 1985. This second version of the 15th edition continued to be published and revised through the release of the 2010 print version. The official title of the 15th edition is
The New Encyclopædia Britannica, although it has also been promoted as
Britannica 3.
1994–present In the fifth era (1994–present), digital versions have been developed and released on
optical media and online. In 1996, the
Britannica was bought by Jacqui Safra at well below its estimated value, owing to the company's financial difficulties. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. split in 1999. One part retained the company name and developed the print version, and the other, Britannica.com Incorporated, developed digital versions. Since 2001, the two companies have shared a CEO,
Ilan Yeshua, who has continued Powell's strategy of introducing new products with the
Britannica name. In March 2012, Britannica's president,
Jorge Cauz, announced that it would not produce any new print editions of the encyclopaedia, with the 2010 15th edition being the last. The company will focus only on the online edition and other educational tools.
Britannica final print edition was in 2010, a 32-volume set.
Dedications The
Britannica was
dedicated to the reigning
British monarch from 1788 to 1901 and then, upon its sale to an American partnership, to the British monarch and the President of the United States. The order of the dedications has changed with the relative power of the United States and Britain, and with relative sales; the 1954 version of the 14th edition is "Dedicated by Permission to the Heads of the Two English-Speaking Peoples,
Dwight David Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, and Her Majesty,
Queen Elizabeth the Second." == Print version ==