Encyclopędia Britannica Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Encyclopędia Britannica is the oldest and most prestigious English-language general encyclopedia. Its articles are commonly considered accurate, reliable and well-written.A product of the Scottish enlightenment, it was originally published in Edinburgh by Adam and Charles Black beginning in the 18th century. Unlike the French Encyclopédie, Britannica was an extremely conservative publication. Later editions were usually dedicated to the reigning monarch. The publication moved from Scotland to London and became associated with The Times newspaper in the 1870s for its ninth and tenth editions. For the eleventh edition the publication became associated with the University of Cambridge, also in England. The trademark and publication rights were sold after the 11th edition to Sears Roebuck and it moved to Chicago, Illinois, United States where it has remained. The current publisher is Encyclopędia Britannica Inc. (properly spelt with ę, the ae-ligature), which now owns a trademark on the word "Britannica".
As of 2004, the most complete version of Encyclopędia Britannica contains about 120,000 articles with 44 million words. It is published in paper form (32 volumes, list price US$1400, 65,000 articles), online (120,000 articles, brief summaries of articles can be viewed for free, and the full text is available for US$10 per month or US$60 per year for individual subscribers), on CD-ROM (more than 100,000 articles, US$50), and on DVD-ROM (more than 100,000 articles, US$50).
The current version of Britannica was written by over 4,000 contributors, including noted scholars such as Milton Friedman, Carl Sagan and Michael DeBakey. Thirty-five-percent of the content of the encyclopedia has been re-written within the last two years.
Dale Hoiberg is the publication's current editor.
| Edition | Published | Size |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 1768-1771 | 3 vol. |
| 2nd | 1777-1784 | 10 vol. |
| 3rd | 1788-1797, 1801 sup. | 18 vol. + 2 sup. |
| 4th | 1801-1809 | 20 vol. |
| 5th | 1815 | 20 vol. |
| 6th | 1820-1823, 1815-1824 sup. | 20 vol. + 2 sup. |
| 7th | 1830-1842 | 21 vol. |
| 8th | 1852-1860 | 21 vol. + index |
| 9th | 1870-1890 | 24 vol. + index.¹ |
| 10th | 1902-1903 | 9th ed. + 9 sup.² |
| 11th | 1910-1911 | 29 vol.³ |
| 12th | 1921-1922 | 11th ed. + 3 sup. |
| 13th | 1926 | 11th ed.+ 6 sup. |
| 14th | 1929-1973 | 24 vol. |
| 15th | 1974-1984 | 28 vol. |
| 1985- | 32 vol. |
vol. = volume, sup. = supplement
(1) 9th ed. featured articles by notables of the day, such as James Maxwell on Electricity and Magnetism, and William Thomson (who became Lord Kelvin) on Heat.
(2) 10th ed. added a maps volume and an index volume
(3) 11th ed. Considered to be the classic edition of Encyclopędia Britannica and available in the public domain (see 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica).
The first CD-ROM edition was issued in 1994.
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