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TheEncyclopædia Britannica (Latin for 'British Encyclopaedia') is ageneral-knowledge English-languageencyclopaedia. It has been published byEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes[1] and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as anonline encyclopaedia.
Printed for 244 years, theBritannica was the longest-running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 inEdinburgh, Scotland, in three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size; the second edition was 10 volumes,[2] and by its fourth edition (1801–1810), it had expanded to 20 volumes.[3] Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, theBritannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market.
In 1933, theBritannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule.[citation needed] In the 21st century, theBritannica suffered first from competition with the digital multimedia encyclopaediaMicrosoftEncarta,[4] and later with the onlinepeer-produced encyclopaediaWikipedia.[5][6][7]
In March 2012, it announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version.[6][8]
The 15th edition (1974–2010) has a three-part structure: a 12-volumeMicropædia of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volumeMacropædia of long articles (two to 310 pages), and a singlePropædia volume to give ahierarchical outline of knowledge. TheMicropædia was meant for quickfact-checking and as a guide to theMacropædia; readers are advised to study thePropædia outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. Over 70 years, the size of theBritannica has remained steady, with about 40 million words on half a million topics.[citation needed] Though published in the United States since 1901, theBritannica has for the most part maintainedBritish English spelling.
The title page of the first edition of theEncyclopædia Britannica, published in 1771
Past owners have included, in chronological order, theEdinburgh, Scotland-based printers Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, Scottish bookseller Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher A & C Black,Horace Everett Hooper,Sears Roebuck,William Benton, andJacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire ofNew 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.[9] To remain competitive, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has stressed the reputation of theBritannica, reduced its price and production costs, and developed electronic versions onCD-ROM, DVD, and theWorld Wide Web. Since the early 1930s, the company has promoted spin-off reference works.[10]
TheEncyclopaedia Britannica has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd and 4th editions (see theTable 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. The 15th underwent massive reorganization in 1985, but the updated, current version is still known as the 15th. The 14th and 15th editions were edited every year throughout their runs, so that later printings of each were entirely different from early ones.
Throughout history, theBritannica has had two aims: to be an excellent reference book, and to provide educational material.[11] In 1974, the 15th edition adopted a third goal: to systematize all human knowledge.[12] The history of theBritannica can be divided into five eras, punctuated by changes in management, or reorganization of the dictionary.
The early 19th-century editions ofEncyclopædia Britannica included influential, original research such asThomas Young's article on Egypt, which included the translation of thehieroglyphs on theRosetta Stone (pictured).
In the first era (1st–6th editions, 1768–1826), theBritannica was managed and published by its founders, Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, by Archibald Constable, and by others. TheBritannica was first published between December 1768[13] and 1771 inEdinburgh as theEncyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan. In part, it was conceived in reaction to the FrenchEncyclopédie ofDenis Diderot andJean le Rond d'Alembert (published 1751–1772), which had been inspired byChambers'sCyclopaedia (first edition 1728). It went on sale 10 December.[14]
During the second era (7th–9th editions, 1827–1901), theBritannica was managed by the Edinburgh publishing firm A & C Black. Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notablyMacvey Napier, others were attracted by theBritannica's 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 allBritannicas.[18][19] After 1880, Baynes was assisted byWilliam Robertson Smith.[20] No biographies of living persons were included.[21]James Clerk Maxwell andThomas Huxley were special advisors on science.[22] However, by the close of the 19th century, the 9th edition was outdated, and theBritannica faced financial difficulties.
An advertisement for the 11th edition, published in the May 1913 issue ofNational GeographicA wooden shipping crate for the 14th edition of theBritannica
In the third era (10th–14th editions, 1901–1973), theBritannica was managed by American businessmen who introduceddirect marketing anddoor-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, and is still praised for excellence; its owner, Horace Hooper, lavished enormous effort on its perfection.[19]
When Hooper fell into financial difficulties, theBritannica was managed bySears Roebuck for 18 years (1920–1923, 1928–1943). In 1932, the vice-president of Sears, Elkan Harrison Powell, assumed presidency of theBritannica; in 1936, he began the policy of continuous revision. This was a departure from earlier practice, in which the articles were not changed until a new edition was produced, at roughly 25-year intervals, some articles unchanged from earlier editions.[10] Powell developed new educational products that built upon theBritannica's reputation.
In 1943, Sears donated theEncyclopædia Britannica to theUniversity of Chicago.William Benton, then a vice president of the university, provided the working capital for its operation. The stock was divided between Benton and the university, with the university holding an option on the stock.[23] Benton became chairman of the board and managed theBritannica until his death in 1973.[24] Benton set up the Benton Foundation, which managed theBritannica until 1996, and whose sole beneficiary was the University of Chicago.[25] In 1968, theBritannica celebratedits bicentennial.
In the fourth era (1974–1994), theBritannica introduced its 15th edition, which was reorganized into three parts: theMicropædia, theMacropædia, and thePropædia. 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 ofBritannica from 1965),[26] theBritannica 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 (theMicro- andMacropædia) provoked a "firestorm of criticism" of the initial 15th edition.[18][27] 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 theNew Encyclopædia Britannica, although it has also been promoted asBritannica 3.[18]
On 9 March 1976 the USFederal Trade Commission entered an opinion and order enjoining Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. from using: a) deceptive advertising practices in recruiting sales agents and obtaining sales leads, and b) deceptive sales practices in the door-to-door presentations of its sales agents.[28]
In the fifth era (1994–present), digital versions have been developed and released onoptical media and online.
In 1996, theBritannica 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 theBritannica 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.[1][29]
Britannica's final print edition was in 2010, a 32-volume set.[1]Britannica Global Edition was also printed in 2010, containing 30 volumes and 18,251 pages, with 8,500 photographs, maps, flags, and illustrations in smaller "compact" volumes, as well as over 40,000 articles written by scholars from across the world, including Nobel Prize winners. Unlike the 15th edition, it did not containMacro- andMicropædia sections, but ran A through Z as all editions up through the 14th had. The following isBritannica's description of the work:[30]
The editors ofEncyclopædia Britannica, the world standard in reference since 1768, present theBritannica Global Edition. Developed specifically to provide comprehensive and global coverage of the world around us, this unique product contains thousands of timely, relevant, and essential articles drawn from theEncyclopædia Britannica itself, as well as from theBritannica Concise Encyclopedia, theBritannica Encyclopedia of World Religions, and Compton's by Britannica. Written by international experts and scholars, the articles in this collection reflect the standards that have been the hallmark of the leading English-language encyclopedia for over 240 years.
In 2020, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. released theBritannica All New Children's Encyclopedia: What We Know and What We Don't, an encyclopaedia aimed primarily at younger readers, covering major topics. The encyclopedia was widely praised for bringing back the print format. It wasBritannica's first encyclopaedia for children since 1984.[31][32][33]
TheBritannica wasdedicated to the reigningBritish 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.[18] Thus, the 11th edition is "dedicated by Permission to His MajestyGeorge the Fifth,King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas,Emperor of India, and toWilliam Howard Taft, President of the United States of America."[34] 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."[35]
The 15th edition of theBritannica; the initial volume with the green spine is thePropædia; the red-spined and black-spined volumes are theMicropædia and theMacropædia, respectively. The last three volumes are the 2002 Book of the Year (black spine) and the two-volume index (cyan spine).
From 1985, theBritannica consisted of four parts: theMicropædia, theMacropædia, thePropædia, and a two-volume index. TheBritannica's articles are contained in theMicro- andMacropædia, which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007Macropædia has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from two pages to 310 pages, with references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007Micropædia has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors.[36] TheMicropædia articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in theMacropædia. TheMacropædia articles are meant as authoritative, well-written commentaries on their subjects, as well as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere.[18] The longest article (310 pages) is on the subject of the United States, and it resulted from merging separate articles on the individualUS states. A 2013 "Global Edition" ofBritannica contained approximately 40,000 articles.[30]
Information can be found in theBritannica by following thecross-references in theMicropædia andMacropædia; these are sparse, however, averaging one cross-reference per page.[37] Readers are instead recommended to consult the alphabetical index or thePropædia, which organizes theBritannica's contents by topic.[38]
The core of thePropædia is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge.[12] Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by theBritannica's editors to decide which articles should be included in theMicro- andMacropædia.[12] The Outline can also be used as a study guide, as it puts subjects in their proper perspective and suggests a series ofBritannica articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth.[12] However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used for this purpose, and reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia.[39] ThePropædia contains colour transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members, advisors, and contributors to all three parts of theBritannica.
Taken together, theMicropædia andMacropædia comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images.[38] The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in theBritannica, together with 474,675 subentries under those topics.[37] TheBritannica generally prefersBritish spelling overAmerican;[37] for example, it usescolour (notcolor),centre (notcenter), andencyclopaedia (notencyclopedia). There are some exceptions to this rule, such asdefense rather thandefence.[40][original research?] Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color:see Colour."
Since 1936, theBritannica has been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of the articles considered for revision each year.[37][10] According to one Britannica website, 46% of the articles in the 2007 edition were revised over the preceding three years;[41] however, according to another Britannica website, only 35% of the articles were revised over the same period.[42]
The alphabetization of articles in theMicropædia andMacropædia follows strict rules.[43]Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as "1812, War of" are alphabetized as if the number had been written out ("Eighteen-twelve, War of"). Articles with identical names are ordered first by persons, then by places, then by things. Rulers with identical names are organized first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus,Charles III of France precedesCharles I of England, listed inBritannica as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. (That is, they are alphabetized as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organized alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions.
In March 2012, the company announced that the 2010 edition would be the last printed version. This was part of a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution.[44] The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold, but sales had dropped to 40,000 per annum by 1996.[45] There were 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition printed, of which 8,000 had been sold by March 2012.[46] By late April 2012, the remaining copies of the 2010 edition had sold out at Britannica's online store. As of 2016[update], a replica of Britannica's 1768 first edition is available via the online store.[47]
Britannica Junior was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamedBritannica Junior Encyclopædia in 1963.[48] It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing.
A BritishChildren's Britannica edited byJohn Armitage was issued in London in 1960.[49] Its contents were determined largely by theeleven-plus standardized tests given in Britain.[50] Britannica introduced theChildren's Britannica to the US market in 1988, aimed at ages seven to 14.
In 1961, a 16-volumeYoung Children's Encyclopaedia was issued for children just learning to read.[50]My First Britannica is aimed at children ages six to 12, and theBritannica Discovery Library is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991).[51]Compton's by Britannica, first published in 2007, incorporating the formerCompton's Encyclopedia, is aimed at 10- to 17-year-olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages.[52]
There have been, and are, several abridgedBritannica encyclopaedias. The single-volumeBritannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volumeBritannica;[53] there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese[54] created byEncyclopedia of China Publishing House[55] andVietnamese.[56][57]
Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually aBook of the Year covering the past year's events. A given edition of theBook of the Year is named in terms of the year of its publication, though the edition actually covers the events of the previous year. The company also publishes several specialized reference works, such asShakespeare: The Essential Guide to the Life and Works of the Bard (Wiley, 2006).
TheBritannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2012 DVD contains over 100,000 articles.[58] This includes regularBritannica articles, as well as others drawn from theBritannica Student Encyclopædia, and theBritannica Elementary Encyclopædia. The package includes a range of supplementary content including maps, videos, sound clips, animations and web links. It also offers study tools and dictionary and thesaurus entries fromMerriam-Webster.
Britannica Online is a website with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly.[59] It has daily features, updates and links to news reports fromThe New York Times and theBBC. As of 2009[update], roughly 60% of Encyclopædia Britannica's revenue came from online operations, of which around 15% came from subscriptions to the consumer version of the websites.[60] As of 2006[update], subscriptions were available on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis.[61] Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers constitute an important part of Britannica's business. Beginning in early 2007, theBritannica made articles freely available if they are hyperlinked from an external site. Non-subscribers are served pop-ups and advertising.[62]
On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that it was working with mobile phone search companyAskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopaedia.[63][needs update] Users would be able to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow would searchBritannica's 28,000-article concise encyclopaedia to return an answer to the query. Daily topical features sent directly to users' mobile phones were also planned.
On 3 June 2008, an initiative to facilitate collaboration between online expert and amateur scholarly contributors for Britannica's online content (in the spirit of awiki), with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced.[64][65] Approved contributions would be credited,[66] though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. perpetual, irrevocable licence to those contributions.[67]
On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president,Jorge Cauz, announced that the company would be accepting edits and additions to the onlineBritannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopaedia would not be affected by the changes.[68] Individuals wishing to edit theBritannica website would have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content.[69] All edits submitted would be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by the encyclopaedia's professional staff.[69] Contributions from non-academic users would sit in a separate section from the expert-generatedBritannica content,[70] as would content submitted by non-Britannica scholars.[71] Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, would also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles.[68][71] OfficialBritannica material would carry a "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content.[72]
On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development companyConcentric Sky to launch a series ofiPhone products aimed at theK–12 market.[73] On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product line to Intel'sIntel Atom-basedNetbooks[74][75] and on 26 October 2011 that it had launched its encyclopaedia as aniPadapp.[76] In 2010, Britannica released Britannica ImageQuest, a database of images.[77]
In March 2012, it was announced that the company would cease printing the encyclopaedia set, and that it would focus on its online version.[78][79]
On 7 June 2018, Britannica released aGoogle Chrome extension, "Britannica Insights", which shows snippets of information from Britannica Online whenever the user performs aGoogle Search, in a box to the right of Google's results.[80] Britannica Insights was also available as aFirefox extension but this was taken down due to acode review issue.[81]
The print version of theBritannica has 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel laureate economistMilton Friedman, astronomerCarl Sagan, and surgeonMichael DeBakey.[82] Roughly a quarter of the contributors are deceased, some as long ago as 1947 (Alfred North Whitehead), while another quarter are retired oremeritus. Most (approximately 98%)[citation needed] contribute to only a single article; however, 64 contributed to three articles, 23 contributed to four articles, 10 contributed to five articles, and 8 contributed to more than five articles. An exceptionally prolific contributor isChristine Sutton of theUniversity of Oxford, who contributed 24 articles onparticle physics.[83]
With a temerity almost appalling, [theBritannica contributor, Mr. Philips] ranges over nearly the whole field of European history, political, social, ecclesiastical... The grievance is that [this work] lacks authority. This, too—this reliance on editorial energy instead of on ripe special learning—may, alas, be also counted an "Americanizing": for certainly nothing has so cheapened the scholarship of our American encyclopaedias.[87]
Paul T. Armstrong remains the longest working employee of Encyclopædia Britannica. He began his career there in 1934, eventually earning the positions of treasurer, vice president, and chief financial officer in his 58 years with the company, before retiring in 1992.[91]
The 2007 editorial staff of theBritannica included five Senior Editors and nine Associate Editors, supervised by Dale Hoiberg and four others. The editorial staff helped to write the articles of theMicropædia and some sections of theMacropædia.[92]
As of 2012,Britannica had an editorial board of advisors, which included a number of distinguished figures, primarily scholars from a variety of disciplines.[93][94]
ThePropædia and itsOutline of Knowledge were produced by dozens of editorial advisors under the direction ofMortimer J. Adler.[95] Roughly half of these advisors have since died, including some of the Outline's chief architects –Rene Dubos (d. 1982),Loren Eiseley (d. 1977),Harold D. Lasswell (d. 1978),Mark Van Doren (d. 1972),Peter Ritchie Calder (d. 1982) and Mortimer J. Adler (d. 2001). ThePropædia also lists just under 4,000 advisors who were consulted for the unsignedMicropædia articles.[96]
During much of the 20th century, theBritannica had a significant ownership stake from theUniversity of Chicago, with many people associated with the university serving senior positions in the organisation.[97]331-332 During the mid 20th century, managers and executives at theBritannica company were lavishly rewarded due to the healthy profit encyclopedia sales generated, with division managers at the top of the sales organisation earning an average salary of $125,000 in 1958 ($1,362,313 around in current USD adjusted for inflation).[97]329
From 1974, the company was controlled by theBenton Foundation, of which the University of Chicago was the sole beneficiary.[98] In January 1996, theBritannica was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financierJacqui Safra,[99] who serves as its current chair of the board. In 1997, Don Yannias, a long-time associate and investment advisor of Safra, became CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.[100]
In 1999, a new company,Britannica.com Incorporated, wascreated to develop digital versions of theBritannica; Yannias assumed the role of CEO in the new company, while his former position at the parent company remained vacant for two years. Yannias' tenure at Britannica.com Incorporated was marked by missteps, considerable lay-offs, and financial losses.[101] In 2001, Yannias was replaced byIlan Yeshua, who reunited the leadership of the two companies.[102] Yannias later returned to investment management, but remains on theBritannica's Board of Directors.
In 2003, former management consultantJorge Aguilar-Cauz was appointed President of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Cauz is the senior executive and reports directly to theBritannica's Board of Directors. Cauz has been pursuing alliances with other companies and extending theBritannica brand to new educational and reference products, continuing the strategy pioneered by former CEOElkan Harrison Powell in the mid-1930s.[103]
In the fall of 2017,Karthik Krishnan was appointed global chief executive officer of the Encyclopædia Britannica Group. Krishnan brought a varied perspective to the role based on several high-level positions in digital media, including RELX (formerly known as Reed Elsevier, and one of the constituents of the FTSE 100 Index) and Rodale, in which he was responsible for "driving business and cultural transformation and accelerating growth".[104]
Taking the reins of the company as it was preparing to mark its 250th anniversary and define the next phase of its digital strategy for consumers and K–12 schools, Krishnan launched a series of new initiatives in his first year.
First was Britannica Insights,[105] a free, downloadable software extension to the Google Chrome browser that served up edited, fact-checked Britannica information with queries on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Its purpose, the company said, was to "provide trusted, verified information" in conjunction with search results that were thought to be increasingly unreliable in the era of misinformation and "fake news."
The product was quickly followed by Britannica School Insights, which provided similar content for subscribers to Britannica's online classroom products, and a partnership with YouTube[106] in which verified Britannica content appeared on the site as an antidote to user-generated video content that could be false or misleading.
Although prior to 1920 theBritannica was primarily sold bymail-order,[107] after that time theBritannica was almost exclusively sold bydoor-to-door salesmen,[108][107] who often usedhigh-pressure sales tactics or outright deception in order to secure purchases of the expensive work,[107][97]317-330 from which they gained a significant commission, which in the United States in 1971 was $120–200 (around $932-$1553 adjusted for inflation) per sale.[109] These high-pressure sales tactics resulted in high levels of turnover amongBritannica salesmen, with the company often exaggerating the ease of making a sale to employees, as well as engaging in deceptive job advertising in order to entice people to become salesmen.[97]317-330 TheBritannica was sued several times by the AmericanFederal Trade Commission for deceptive practices.[97]317-330 These practices were common among American encyclopedia companies.[97]317-330[109] The development of the significant sales force began in 1932, with most senior leadership of the company by the late 20th century coming from the sales division.[98]
While early on theBritannica was marketed to adults and in particular during the 19th and early 20th centuries, to an elite educated audience,[97]152-153 by the mid 20th century, theBritannica (as well as other American encyclopedias[109]) were primarily marketed to middle-class parents who wished to seek a good education for their children, despite the text not being aimed at a child's reading level.[98][97]317-330[109] During the 20th century, theBritannica differentiated itself from other encyclopedias by using its long pedigree to present itself as a premium brand.[98] Once the encyclopedia was purchased, it was often little read by its buyers.[108]
As theBritannica is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialized encyclopaedias such as theEncyclopaedia of Mathematics or theDictionary of the Middle Ages, which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, theBritannica's main competitor was the general encyclopaedia ofEphraim Chambers and, soon thereafter,Rees's Cyclopædia andColeridge'sEncyclopædia Metropolitana. In the 20th century, successful competitors includedCollier's Encyclopedia, theEncyclopedia Americana, and theWorld Book Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, theBritannica was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English-language encyclopaedia,[110] especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors.[18][37] The print version of theBritannica was significantly more expensive than its competitors.[18][37]
Since the early 1990s, theBritannica has faced new challenges from digital information sources. The Internet, facilitated by the development ofsearch engines, has grown into a common source of information for many people, and provides easy access to reliable original sources and expert opinions, thanks in part to initiatives such asGoogle Books,MIT'srelease of its educational materials and the openPubMed Central library of theNational Library of Medicine.[111][112]
The Internet tends to provide more current coverage than print media, due to the ease with which material on the Internet can be updated.[113] In rapidly changing fields such as science, technology, politics, culture and modern history, theBritannica has struggled to stay up to date, a problem first analysed systematically by its former editor Walter Yust.[35] Eventually, theBritannica turned to focus more on its online edition.[114]
TheEncyclopædia Britannica has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively.[36][18][37] A well-known comparison is that ofKenneth Kister, who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the 1993Britannica with two comparable encyclopaedias,Collier's Encyclopedia and theEncyclopedia Americana.[18] For the quantitative analysis, ten articles were selected at random—circumcision,Charles Drew,Galileo,Philip Glass,heart disease,IQ,panda bear,sexual harassment,Shroud of Turin andUzbekistan—and letter grades of A–D or F were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell betweenB− and B+, chiefly because none of the encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, theBritannica received one "D" and seven "A"s,Encyclopedia Americana received eight "A"s, andCollier's received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus,Britannica received an average score of 92% for accuracy toAmericana's 95% andCollier's 92%. In the timeliness category,Britannica averaged an 86% toAmericana's 90% andCollier's 85%.[citation needed][115]
The most notable competitor of theBritannica among CD/DVD-ROM digital encyclopaedias wasEncarta,[116] now discontinued, a modern multimedia encyclopaedia that incorporated three print encyclopaedias:Funk & Wagnalls,Collier's, and theNew Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia.Encarta was the top-selling multimedia encyclopaedia, based on total US retail sales from January 2000 to February 2006.[117] Both occupied the same price range, with the2007 Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate CD or DVD costing US$40–50[118][119] and the Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 DVD costing US$45.[120]
TheBritannica disc contains 100,000 articles andMerriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus (US only) and offers primary and secondary school editions.[119]Encarta contained 66,000 articles, a user-friendly Visual Browser, interactive maps, math, language, and homework tools, a US and UK dictionary, and a youth edition.[120] LikeEncarta, the digitalBritannica has been criticized for being biased towards United States audiences; the United Kingdom-related articles are updated less often, maps of the United States are more detailed than those of other countries, and it lacks a UK dictionary.[116] Like theBritannica,Encarta was available online by subscription, although some content could be accessed for free.[121]
The main online alternative toBritannica isWikipedia.[122][123][124] The key differences between the two lie in accessibility; the model of participation they bring to anencyclopedic project; their respective style sheets and editorial policies; relative ages; the number of subjects treated; the number of languages in which articles are written and made available; and their underlying economic models: unlikeBritannica, Wikipedia is not-for-profit, does not carry advertising on its site, and is not connected with traditional profit- and contract-based publishing distribution networks.
Britannica's articles either have known authorship or a set of possible authors (the editorial staff). With the exception of the editorial staff, mostBritannica's contributors are experts in their field—some are Nobel laureates.[82] By contrast, the articles on Wikipedia are written by people of unknown degrees of expertise; most do not claim any particular expertise, and of those who do, many are anonymous and have no verifiable credentials.[125] It is for this lack of institutional vetting or certification that formerBritannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry noted his belief in 2004 that Wikipedia could not hope to rival theBritannica in accuracy.[126]
In 2005, the journalNature chose articles from both websites in a wide range of science topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles—one from each site on a given topic—side by side, but were not told which article came from which site.Nature got back 42 usable reviews. The journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts: four from each site. It also discovered many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 in Wikipedia and 123 inBritannica, an average of 3.86 mistakes per article for Wikipedia and 2.92 forBritannica.[125][127]
AlthoughBritannicawas revealed as the more accurate encyclopaedia, with fewer errors, in its rebuttal, it calledNature's study flawed and misleading[128] and called for a "prompt" retraction. It noted that two of the articles in the study were taken from aBritannica yearbook and not the encyclopaedia, and another two were fromCompton's Encyclopedia (called theBritannica Student Encyclopedia on the company's website).
Nature defended its story and declined to retract, stating that, as it was comparing Wikipedia with the web version ofBritannica, it used whatever relevant material was available onBritannica's website.[129] Interviewed in February 2009, the managing director ofBritannica UK said:
Wikipedia is a fun site to use and has a lot of interesting entries on there, but their approach wouldn't work forEncyclopædia Britannica. My job is to create more awareness of our very different approaches to publishing in the public mind. They're a chisel, we're a drill, and you need to have the correct tool for the job.[60]
For the 15th anniversary of Wikipedia, theTelegraph published two opinion pieces which compared Wikipedia toBritannica and falsely claimed thatBritannica had gone bankrupt in 1996.[130][131] In a January 2016 press release,Britannica responded by calling Wikipedia "an impressive achievement" but argued that critics should avoid "false comparisons" toBritannica in terms of differing models and purposes.[132]
TheBritannica has a reputation for summarizing knowledge.[110] To further their education, some people have devoted themselves to reading the entireBritannica, taking anywhere from three to 22 years to do so.[19] WhenFat'h Ali became theShah of Persia in 1797, he was given a set of theBritannica's 3rd edition; after reading the complete set, he extended his royal title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of theEncyclopædia Britannica".[136]
Topics are chosen in part by reference to thePropædia "Outline of Knowledge".[12] The bulk of the 15th edition of theBritannica is devoted to geography (26% of theMacropædia), biography (14%), biology and medicine (11%), literature (7%), physics and astronomy (6%), religion (5%), art (4%), Western philosophy (4%), and law (3%).[18] A complementary study of theMicropædia found that geography accounted for 25% of articles, science 18%, social sciences 17%, biography 17%, and all other humanities 25%.[37] Writing in 1992, one reviewer judged that the "range, depth, andcatholicity of coverage [of theBritannica] are unsurpassed by any other general Encyclopaedia."[140]
TheBritannica does not cover topics in equal detail; for example, the whole ofBuddhism and most other religions is covered in a singleMacropædia article, whereas 14 articles are devoted to Christianity, comprising nearly half of all religion articles.[141] TheBritannica covers 50,479 biographies, 5,999 of them about women, with 11.87% being British citizens and 25.51% US citizens.[142] However, theBritannica has been lauded as theleast biased of general Encyclopaedias marketed to Western readers[18] and praised for its biographies of important women of all eras.[37]
It can be stated without fear of contradiction that the 15th edition of theBritannica accords non-Western cultural, social, and scientific developments more notice than any general English-language encyclopedia currently on the market.
Harvey Einbinder in theMyth of the Britannica criticised the 11th edition for the inaccessibility of the text for laymen, saying that many of its articles were too technical for people unfamiliar to the subject to understand.[97]152-153 He made similar criticisms of many of the mathematics and science articles of the then-current 14th edition.[97]236-250
On rare occasions, theBritannica has been criticized for its editorial choices. Given its roughly constant size, the encyclopaedia has needed to reduce or eliminate some topics to accommodate others, resulting in controversial decisions. The initial 15th edition (1974–1985) was faulted for having reduced or eliminated coverage of children's literature,military decorations, and the French poetJoachim du Bellay; editorial mistakes were also alleged, such as inconsistent sorting of Japanese biographies.[143] Its elimination of the index was condemned, as was the apparently arbitrary division of articles into theMicropædia andMacropædia.[18][27] Summing up, one critic called the initial 15th edition a "qualified failure ... [that] cares more for juggling its format than for preserving."[143] More recently, reviewers from theAmerican Library Association were surprised to find that most educational articles had been eliminated from the 1992Macropædia, along with the article onpsychology.[39] Harvey Einbinder inThe Myth of the Britannica criticised the practice of condensing entries in the 14th edition, which usually involved simply removing large amounts of the text rather than attempting to condense it by rewriting, resulting in what he considered to be considerable reduction in the quality of the articles.[97]151-168
Some very fewBritannica-appointed contributors are mistaken. A notorious instance from theBritannica's early years is the rejection ofNewtonian gravity byGeorge Gleig, the chief editor of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), who wrote that gravity was caused by theclassical element of fire.[19] TheBritannica has also staunchly defended a scientific approach to cultural topics, as it did withWilliam Robertson Smith's articles on religion in the 9th edition, particularly his article stating that the Bible was not historically accurate (1875).[19]
TheBritannica has received criticism, particularly as editions become outdated. It is expensive to produce a completely new edition of theBritannica,[a] and its editors delay for as long as fiscally sensible (usually about 25 years).[10]
For example, despite continuous revision, the 14th edition became outdated after 35 years (1929–1964). When American physicistHarvey Einbinder detailed its failings in his 1964 book,The Myth of the Britannica,[97] the encyclopaedia was provoked to produce the 15th edition, which required 10 years of work.[18] Editors have struggled at times to keep theBritannica current: one 1994 critic writes, "It is not difficult to find articles that are out-of-date or in need of revision", noting that the longerMacropædia articles are more likely to be outdated than the shorterMicropædia articles.[18] Information in theMicropædia is sometimes inconsistent with the correspondingMacropædia article(s), mainly because of the failure to update one or the other.[36][37] The bibliographies of theMacropædia articles have been criticized for being more out-of-date than the articles themselves.[36][18][37]
In 2005, a 12-year-old schoolboy in Britain found several inaccuracies in theBritannica's entries on Poland and wildlife in Eastern Europe.[144] In 2010, an entry about theIrish Civil War, which incorrectly described it as having been fought between the north and south of Ireland, was discussed in the Irish press following a decision by theDepartment of Education and Science to pay for online access.[145][146]
Writing about the 3rd edition (1788–1797),Britannica's chief editor George Gleig observed that "perfection seems to be incompatible with the nature of works constructed on such a plan and embracing such a variety of subjects."[147] In March 2006, theBritannica wrote, "we in no way mean to imply thatBritannica is error-free; we have never made such a claim".[128] However, theBritannica sales department had previously made a well-known claim in 1962 regarding the 14th edition that "[i]t is truth. It is unquestionable fact."[148] The sentiment of the 2006 statement was also reflected in the introduction to the first edition of theBritannica, written by its original editorWilliam Smellie:[149]
With regard to errors in general, whether falling under the denomination of mental, typographical or accidental, we are conscious of being able to point out a greater number than any critic whatever. Men who are acquainted with the innumerable difficulties attending the execution of a work of such an extensive nature will make proper allowances. To these we appeal, and shall rest satisfied with the judgment they pronounce.
Largely the work of one editor, Smellie; An estimated 3,000 sets were eventually sold, priced at £12 apiece; 30 articles longer than three pages. The pages were bound in three equally sized volumes covering Aa–Bzo, Caaba–Lythrum, and Macao–Zyglophyllum.
Many long articles were copied from the 7th edition; 344 contributors includingWilliam Thomson; authorized American sets printed by Little, Brown in Boston; 8,000 sets sold altogether
9th
1875–1889
24 volumes, plus a 499-page index volume labeled Volume 25
Some carry-over from 8th edition, but mostly a new work; high point of scholarship; 10,000 sets sold by Britannica and 45,000 authorized sets made in the US by Little, Brown in Boston and Schribners' Sons in NY, but pirated widely (500,000 sets) in the US.3
10th, supplement to 9th
1902–1903
11 volumes, plus the 24 volumes of the 9th. Volume 34 containing 124 detailed country maps with index of 250,000 names4
Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City
Another high point of scholarship and writing; more articles than the 9th, but shorter and simpler; financial difficulties for owner, Horace Everett Hooper; EB rights sold toSears Roebuck in 1920
12th, supplement to 11th
1921–1922
3 volumes with own index, plus the 29 volumes of the 11th5
Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City
Summarized state of the world before, during, and after World War I
13th, supplement to 11th
1926
3 volumes with own index, plus the 29 volumes of the 11th6
Philip W. Goetz, thenRobert McHenry, currently Dale Hoiberg
Restored two-volume index; someMicropædia andMacropædia articles merged; slightly longer overall; new versions were issued every few years. This edition is the last printed edition.
Global
2009
30 compact volumes
Dale Hoiberg
Unlike the 15th edition, it did not contain Macro- and Micropedia sections, but ran A through Z as all editions up to the 14th had.
Edition notes
1"Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. With preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences."
2 The 7th to 14th editions included a separate index volume.
3 The 9th edition featured articles by notables of the day, such asJames Clerk Maxwell on electricity and magnetism, andWilliam Thomson (who became Lord Kelvin) on heat.
4 The 10th edition included a maps volume and a cumulative index volume for the 9th and 10th edition volumes:the new volumes, constituting, in combination with the existing volumes of the 9th ed., the 10th ed. ... and also supplying a new, distinctive, and independent library of reference dealing with recent events and developments
5 "Vols. 30–32 ... the New volumes constituting, in combination with the twenty-nine volumes of the eleventh edition, the twelfth edition"
6 This supplement replaced the previous supplement:The three new supplementary volumes constituting, with the volumes of the latest standard edition, the thirteenth edition.
7 At this pointEncyclopædia Britannica began almost annual revisions. New revisions of the 14th edition appeared every year between 1929 and 1973 with the exceptions of 1931, 1934 and 1935.[155]
8 Annual revisions were published every year between 1974 and 2007 with the exceptions of 1996, 1999, 2000, 2004 and 2006.[155] The 15th edition (introduced as "Britannica 3") was published in three parts: a 10-volumeMicropædia (which contained short articles and served as an index), a 19-volumeMacropædia, plus thePropædia (see text).
9 In 1985, the system was modified by adding a separate two-volume index; theMacropædia articles were further consolidated into fewer, larger ones (for example, the previously separate articles about the 50 US states were all included into the "United States of America" article), with some medium-length articles moved to theMicropædia. TheMicropædia had 12 vols. and theMacropædia 17.
The first CD-ROM edition was issued in 1994. At that time also an online version was offered for paid subscription. In 1999 this was offered free, and no revised print versions appeared. The experiment was ended in 2001 and a new printed set was issued in 2001.
^According to Kister, the initial 15th edition (1974) required over $32 million to produce.[18]
^Vol. I has (viii), 697, (i) pages, but 10 unpaginated pages are added between pages 586 and 587. Vol. II has (iii), 1009, (ii) pages, but page numbers 175–176 as well as page numbers 425–426 were used twice; additionally page numbers 311–410 were not used. Vol. III has (iii), 953, (i) pages, but page numbers 679–878 were not used.[150]
^Archibald Constable estimated in 1812 that there had been 3,500 copies printed, but revised his estimate to 3,000 in 1821.[151]
^According to Smellie, it was 10,000, as quoted by Robert Kerr in his "Memoirs of William Smellie." Archibald Constable was quoted as saying the production started at 5,000 and concluded at 13,000.[152]
^10,000 sets sold by Britannica plus 45,000 genuine American reprints by Scribner's Sons, and "several hundred thousand sets of mutilated and fraudulent 9th editions were sold..."[154] Most sources estimate there were 500,000 pirated sets.
^abcd"Encyclopaedia".Encyclopædia Britannica (14th ed.). 1954. Aside from providing a summary of theBritannica's history and early spin-off products, this article also describes the life-cycle of a typicalBritannica edition. A new edition typically begins with strong sales that decay as the encyclopaedia becomes outdated. When work on a new edition is begun, sales of the old edition stop, just when fiscal needs are greatest: a new editorial staff must be assembled, articles commissioned. Elkan Harrison Powell identified this fluctuation of income as a danger to any encyclopaedia, one he hoped to overcome with continuous revision.
^"Encyclopedias and Dictionaries".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (15th ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2007. pp. 257–286.
^abcdeGoetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois:5–8.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Krapp, Philip; Balou, Patricia K. (1992).Collier's Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Macmillan Educational Company. p. 135.LCCN91061165. TheBritannica's 1st edition is described as "deplorably inaccurate and unscientific" in places.
^Kafker, Frank; Loveland, Jeff, eds. (2009).The Early Britannica. Oxford University Press.
Baker, John F. (14 January 1974). "A New Britannica Is Born".Publishers Weekly. pp. 64–65.
Wolff, Geoffrey (June 1974). "Britannica 3, History of".The Atlantic. pp. 37–47.
Cole, Dorothy Ethlyn (June 1974). "Britannica 3 as a Reference Tool: A Review". Wilson Library Bulletin. pp. 821–825.Britannica 3 is difficult to use ... the division of content betweenMicropædia andMacropædia makes it necessary to consult another volume in the majority of cases; indeed, it was our experience that even simple searches might involve eight or nine volumes.
McCracken, Samuel (February 1976). "The Scandal of 'Britannica 3'".Commentary. pp. 63–68.This arrangement has nothing to recommend it except commercial novelty.
Waite, Dennis V. (21 June 1976). "Encyclopædia Britannica: EB 3, Two Years Later".Publishers Weekly. pp. 44–45.
Wolff, Geoffrey (November 1976). "Britannica 3, Failures of".The Atlantic. pp. 107–110.It is called theMicropædia, for 'little knowledge', and little knowledge is what it provides. It has proved to be grotesquely inadequate as an index, radically constricting the utility of theMacropædia.
^abGoetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Index preface ed.). Chicago, Illinois.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Micropædia preface ed.). Chicago, Illinois.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Jiangshan, Wang; Yi, Tian, eds. (October 2020).Imperial China: The Definitive Visual History (First American ed.). New York:DK. p. 3.ISBN978-0-7440-2047-2.
^"Webmaster and Blogger Tools".Encyclopædia Britannica Incorporated, Corporate Site. 2014.Archived from the original on 3 October 2019. Retrieved1 December 2019.
^abGoetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois:531–674.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^"Christine Sutton".Britannica. Britannica Group.Archived from the original on 8 February 2022. Retrieved8 February 2022.
^"Isaac Asimov".Encyclopedia Britannica.Archived from the original on 21 May 2020. Retrieved24 May 2019.
^Burr, George L. (1911). "The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information".American Historical Review.17 (1):103–109.doi:10.2307/1832843.JSTOR1832843.
^abGoetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois: 745.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^"Armstrong".Chicago Tribune. 20 January 2001. Archived fromthe original on 20 September 2015. Retrieved10 April 2015.
^"Biochemical Components of Organisms".Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed. Vol. 14. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2007. pp. 1007–1030.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois: 5.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois:524–530.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois:675–744.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^"Ilan Yeshua Named Britannica CEO. Veteran Executive to Consolidate Operations of Encyclopædia Britannica and Britannica.com" (Press release). Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. 16 May 2001.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Propædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois: 2.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
^Kister, Kenneth F. (1994).Kister's best encyclopedias : a comparative guide to general and specialized encyclopedias (2nd ed.). Phoenix: Oryx Press.ISBN0897747445.
^Tancer, Bill (1 May 2007)."Look Who's Using Wikipedia".Time. Archived fromthe original on 3 March 2007. Retrieved1 December 2007.The sheer volume of content [...] is partly responsible for the site's dominance as an online reference. When compared to the top 3,200 educational reference sites in the US, Wikipedia is No. 1, attracting 24.3% of all visits to the category
^Woodson, Alex (8 July 2007)."Wikipedia remains go-to site for online news".Reuters.Archived from the original on 21 November 2007. Retrieved16 December 2007.Online encyclopedia Wikipedia has added about 20 million unique monthly visitors in the past year, making it the top online news and information destination, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
^"Our Letter to the Telegraph".Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated Corporate Site. 20 January 2016. Archived fromthe original on 28 April 2021. Retrieved28 April 2021.
^"A Completely New Encyclopaedia (sic) Britannica".Time. Vol. XIV, no. 12. 16 September 1929. pp. 2–3.
^abBanquet at Guildhall in the City of London, Tuesday 15 October 1968: Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of theEncyclopædia Britannica and the 25th Anniversary of the Honorable William Benton as its Chair and publisher. United Kingdom:Encyclopædia Britannica International, Limited. 1968.
^"Reader".The New Yorker. Vol. 9. 3 March 1934. p. 17.
^Lang, J. P. (1992).Reference Sources for Small and Medium-Sized Libraries (5th ed.). Chicago, Illinois: American Library Association. p. 34.ISBN978-0-8389-3406-7.
^Goetz, Philip W. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopaedia Britannica Incorporated (15th edition,Macropædia ed.). Chicago, Illinois.Bibcode:1991neb..book.....G.
Boyles, Denis. (2016)Everything Explained That Is Explainable: On the Creation of theEncyclopædia Britannica's Celebrated Eleventh Edition, 1910–1911 (2016)online reviewArchived 7 March 2017 at theWayback Machine