11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica
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Image:EB11.jpg The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910–1911) is the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. <ref>"Among all my reference books, there is one standout, a star, a work that retains its dusty luster and a fierce band of loyal adherents almost a century after it was published.The magic of the Britannica 11 (Accessed February 7, 2005)</ref>
It was edited by Hugh Chisholm. Some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the age, such as Edmund Gosse, J.B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Prince Peter Kropotkin, T.H. Huxley, and William Michael Rossetti, and others well known to that era. Many others were carried over from the Ninth Edition, some with minimal updating, some of the book-length articles divided into smaller parts for easier reference, yet others heavily abridged. The best known authors generally contributed only a single article or part of an article, however. The majority of the work was done by a mix of journalists, British Museum staff, and academics. Among these lesser-known contributors were some who would later achieve greatness, such as Ernest Rutherford and Bertrand Russell.
The encyclopedia's articles are still of value and interest to modern readers and scholars, especially as a cultural artifact: the British Empire was at its very height, the paradigm of imperialism was unchallenged, and the horrors of the modern world wars were still in the future. As a literary text, the encyclopedia holds value as the epitome of early 20th century prose, much as the King James Version is often admired by non-Christians purely for the literary quality of certain passages. The encyclopedia abounds in the use of pathetic fallacy and other dated literary devices which often confounds the modern scientific reader yet stirs the heart of the modern literary reader.
Image:EncycBrit1913.jpg The 11th edition was a notable reorganization and rewriting of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which was first published in three volumes in 1768. The 11th edition formed the basis for every edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica up until 1974, when the completely new 15th edition, based on modern information presentation, was published.
Sir Kenneth Clark, in Another Part of the Wood, wrote of the 11th edition:
One leaps from one subject to another, fascinated as much by the play of mind and the idiosyncrasies of their authors as by the facts and dates. It must be the last encyclopædia in the tradition of Diderot which assumes that information can be made memorable only when it is slightly coloured by prejudice. When T.S. Eliot wrote "Soul curled up on the window seat reading the Encyclopædia Britannica" he was certainly thinking of the eleventh edition.
The 1911 edition for the first time saw a number of female contributors. Thirty-four women contributed articles to the edition.
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1911 Britannica in the 21st century
The 1911 edition is no longer restricted by copyright, and it is available in several more modern forms. While it was indeed a reliable source for its time, for modern readers some articles are now less so for a number of reasons including systemic nationalism, polemic authors, hagiography treatments and factual accuracy. Articles about sensitive topics that could, for example, strike chords of British nationalism, such as the French First Empire, are today considered highly biased. Some articles are polemic, such as the Stockholm Bloodbath, where the author clearly supports one faction against the other. Articles about nobility were often hagiographies, such as in the case of Umberto I of Italy being propaganda in favour of a king widely perceived as a tyrant loathed by his people. Many articles are now just simply factually outdated, such as science and medicine, or about geographic places, for example mentioning rail connections and ferry stops in towns that today no longer employ such transport.
Because the 1911 edition is now in the public domain it has become a commonly quoted source. However, use of the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 should not be as a primary source; direct quotation should only be made by an expert knowledgeable in the area, or by someone who uses other sources to verify the material, to ensure that the material is up to modern standards and most recent research. Even by the 1930s the 11th edition was showing its age; Amos Urban Shirk, who read both the entire 11th and 14th edition in the 1930s, said he found the 14th edition a "big improvement" over the 11th, stating that "most of the material had been completely rewritten". Nevertheless, this edition has been a frequent starting point for articles in the English Wikipedia.
Gutenberg Encyclopedia
The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is actually the 11th Edition of the EB, renamed to address Britannica's trademark concerns. As of February 2006, Project Gutenberg only holds an electronic version of Volume 1 and the first portion of Volume 2. Distributed Proofreaders is currently working on producing a complete electronic edition of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which will be available from Project Gutenberg when finished. Proofreading has been completed with these volumes, and the final post processing and assembly is currently underway for volumes 2 through 5, and formal proofreading on volume 6.
| Section | From | To | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 1: | A | – | Androphagi | [1] |
| Volume 2.1.1: | Andros, Sir Edmund | – | Anise | [2] |
| The following sections are still being processed at PGDP. Access to the web pages requires (free) registration. | ||||
| Volume 2.1.2+: | [?] | – | Argentina | |
| Volume 2.2: | Argentina | – | Austria | [3] |
| Volume 3.1: | Austria, Lower | – | Bassoon | [4] |
| Volume 3.2: | Bassoon | – | Bisectrix | [5] |
| Volume 4.1: | Bishârîn | – | Borgia, Lucrezia | [6] |
| Volume 4.2: | Bordeaux | – | Bréquigny | [7] |
| Volume 4.3: | Bréquigny | – | Bulgaria | |
| Volume 4.4: | Bulgaria | – | Calgary | [8] |
| Volume 5.1: | Calhoun, John Caldwell | – | Cape Colony | |
| Volume 5.2: | Cape Colony | – | Cat | |
| Volume 5.3: | Cat | – | Ceramic | |
| Volume 5.4: | [?] | – | [?] | |
| Volume 6.1: | Chàtelet | – | Chicago | |
| Volume 6.2: | Chicago | – | Chiton | |
| Volume 6.3: | Chiton | – | Cincinnati | |
| Volume 6.4: | Cincinnatus | – | Cleruchy | |
| Volume 6.5: | Clervaux | – | Cockade | [9] |
| Volume 6.6: | Cockaigne | – | Columbus, Christopher | [10] |
| Volume 6.7: | Columbus, Christopher | – | Condottiere | [11] |
References
<references/>
- All There is to Know (1994), edited by Alexander Coleman and Charles Simmons. Subtitled: "Readings from the Illustrious Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica". ISBN 0-671-76747-X
- Gillian Thomas (1992). A Position to Command Respect: Women and the Eleventh Britannica New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810825678.
External links
Free, public-domain resources:
- Full-page scans in both png and tiff format, at Tim Starling's Wikisource page.
- Project Gutenberg Volume I
- The Project Gutenberg Volume II
Versions of this public domain work claiming copyright:
- LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia World Wide Web edition. This appears to be a raw, unproofread OCR-scanned version, without the illustrations: it contains very many errors, many of them quite serious, as for example when the beginning of one article is spliced to the end of another with the intervening material missing, or tabular material is garbled across the columns, or again anything in a foreign language. A footnote reads: Although linking to this site is encouraged, reproducing Contents on another site or redistributing Contents is forbidden. Taking Contents from this site and editing it and posting it on another site is forbidden and will result in swift legal action. This implies that the content is not public domain. Determining actual copyright status may require legal advice.
- Online 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. World Wide Web, OCR-scanned version of the encyclopedia, that has scanning errors. At the bottom of a page the following footnote can be seen Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2005 - Net Industries, worldwide. Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part. Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.
- A proposed 1911 Encyclopedia in Wiki format
- Wikisource Project for 1911 Wikipediafr:Encyclopædia Britannica 1911
