1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
|
Supporters contend that the '''Eleventh Edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''''' (1910-1911) represents "the sum of human knowledge" at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, it was advertised as such. The edition is still often regarded as the greatest edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', many articles being up to 10 times the length of those in other encyclopædias.
It was edited by Hugh Chisholm. Some articles were written by the best-known scholars and learned gentlemen of the age, such as Edmund Gosse, J.B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Peter Kropotkin|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. Many articles are still of value and interest to modern readers and scholars. 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 Eleventh Edition was a notable reorganization and rewriting of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', which was first published in three volumes in 1768. The Eleventh Edition formed the basis for every edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' up until 1974, when the completely new Fifteenth Edition, based on modern information presentation, was published.
Sir Kenneth Clark, in ''Another Part of the Wood'', wrote of the Eleventh 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 Denis Diderot|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.
The 1911 edition is no longer restricted by copyright, and it is available in several more modern forms.
Criticisms
The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 was indeed a valuable source for its time, but for modern readers many articles are now antiquated. Reasons for this include articles written in an inappropriate style or that bear the mark of British nationalism of about one century ago. Articles about sensitive topics that could, for example, strike chords of British nationalism, such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_French_Empire&oldid=859357 can be unreliable and highly biased. Others can present only the point of view of the writer, such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stockholm_Bloodbath&oldid=1488643 where the writer clearly supports one faction against the other. Articles about nobility can be overly praising, in the exemplifying case of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Umberto_I_of_Italy&oldid=4384386being propaganda in favour of a king widely perceived as a loathed tyrant by his people. Articles about science and medicine are outdated. Articles about geographic places (towns) read like 19th century tour guides, mentioning rail schedules 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 today should not be as a primary source; direct quotation should only be made by an expert knowledgable 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, said he found the 14th edition a "big improvement" over the 11th, "most of the material had been completely rewritten".
''Gutenberg Encyclopedia''
The ''Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia'' is actually the 11th Edition of the ''EB'', renamed to address Britannica's trademark concerns. However, As of 2005|as of July 2005, 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.
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:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Tim_Starlingin both png and tiff format, at Tim Starling's Wikisource page.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/200http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13600
Versions of this public domain work claiming copyright:
http://1911encyclopedia.org/World Wide Web edition. This appears to be a raw, unproofread Optical character recognition|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.
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/ 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.''
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/1911wikipedia
|