Encyclopædia Britannica, the eleventh edition

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the day. The articles are still of value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries; they contain, however, a number of problematic areas for the modern scholar using them as a source. The eleventh edition is no longer restricted by copyright and has become available online, both in its original text and where parts of it have been incorporated into other online encyclopedias and works. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1764x1118, 107 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1764x1118, 107 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelled with the æ ligature) is a general encyclopedia published by the privately held Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. ... A cultural artifact is an man-made object which gives information about the culture of its creator and users. ... Like John says copyright law in the UK is u make something and its copyrighted but in america u must make a patent haaaa ... Online means being connected to the Internet or another similar electronic network, like a bulletin board system. ...

Background

The 1911 eleventh edition was assembled under the leadership of American publisher Horace Everett Hooper, and edited by Hugh Chisholm. Originally, Hooper purchased the rights to the 25-volume ninth edition and persuaded the British newspaper The Times to issue its reprint, with eleven additional volumes (35 volumes total) as the tenth edition, which appeared in 1902. Hooper's association with The Times ceased in 1909, and he negotiated with the Cambridge University Press to publish the 29-volume eleventh edition. Though it is generally perceived as a quintessentially British work, the eleventh edition had substantial American influences, not only in the increased amount of American and Canadian content, but also in the efforts made to give it a more popular tone. American marketing methods also assisted sales. Some 11% of the contributors were American, and a New York office was established to run that side of the enterprise. Horace Everett Hooper was the former editor of Encyclopædia Britannica. ... Hugh Chisholm, (1866-1924),journalist and editor of the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, a son of Henry Williams Chisholm, Warden of the Standards at the Board of Trade. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ...

Some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the day, such as Edmund Gosse, J. B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Prince Peter Kropotkin, T. H. Huxley, G. K. Chesterton and William Michael Rossetti, and others well known to that era. Among the lesser-known contributors were some who would later achieve greatness, such as Ernest Rutherford and Bertrand Russell. Many articles 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. The majority of the work was done by a mix of journalists, British Museum staff, and academics. The 1911 edition for the first time saw a number of female contributors, thirty-four women contributing articles to the edition.^[1] Edmund William Gosse (September 21, 1849 - May 16, 1928) was an English poet, author and critic, the son of Philip Henry Gosse. ... John Bagnell Bury (16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an eminent British historian, classical scholar, and philologist. ... Algernon Charles Swinburne (April 5, 1837 _ April 10, 1909) was a Victorian era English poet. ... John Muir (1838-1914) John Muir appears on the California quarter John Muir (April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914) was one of the earliest modern preservationists. ... Peter Kropotkin Prince Peter Alexeevich Kropotkin (In Russian Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин) (December 9, 1842 - February 8, 1921) was one of Russias foremost anarchists and one of the first advocates of what he called anarchist communism: the model of society he advocated for most of his life was that of a communalist society... Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley F.R.S. (May 4, 1825 - June 29, 1895) was a British biologist, known as Darwins Bulldog for his defence of Charles Darwins theory of evolution. ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874–June 14, 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. ... William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) was an English writer and critic. ... Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, PC, FRS (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937), was a nuclear physicist from New Zealand. ... Bertrand William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, and mathematician, working mostly in the 20th century. ... The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, with a tessellated glass roof by Buro Happold and Foster and Partners surrounding the original Reading Room. ...

The eleventh edition introduced a number of changes to the format of the Britannica. It was the first to be published complete, instead of the previous method of volumes being released as they were ready. The type was kept in galleys and subject to continual updating until publication. It was the first edition of Britannica to be issued with a comprehensive index volume in which was added a categorical index, where like topics were listed. It was the first to break away from the convention of long treatise-length articles; even though the overall length of the work was roughly the same as its predecessor, the numbers of articles had increased from 17,000 to 40,000. It was the first edition of Britannica to contain biographies of living people. Letterpress printing is the oldest printing technique, in which a raised surface is inked and then pressed against a smooth substance to obtain an image in reverse. ... In printing, galley proofs are preliminary versions of publications, usually uncut and unbound. ... A database transaction is a unit of interaction with a database management system or similar system that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions that must be either entirely completed or aborted. ...

According to Coleman and Simmons, p 32^[2] the content of the encyclopedia was made up as follows:

Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago in 1920, completing the Britannica's transition into becoming a substantially American venture. yt dftj cgh cjhgScience in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. ... HIStory: Past, Present and Future – Book I (or simply HIStory) is a double-disc album by Michael Jackson released in 1995 by the Epic Records devision of Sony Music. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Cornfield is an oil on canvas painting by John Constable in 1826 Fine art refers to arts that are concerned with beauty or which appealed to taste (SOED 1991). ... The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. ... Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Sears, Roebuck and Company (NYSE: S) was founded in Chicago, Illinois as a catalog merchandiser in 1886 by Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck. ... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook Incorporated March 4, 1837 Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area    - City 606. ...

In 1922, an additional three volumes were published, covering the events of the intervening years, including the First World War. These, together with a reprint of the eleventh edition, formed the twelfth edition of the work. A similar thirteenth edition, of three volumes plus a reprint of the twelfth edition, was published in 1926, so the twelfth and thirteenth editions were of course closely related to the eleventh edition and shared much of the same content. However, it became increasingly clear that a more thorough update of the work was required. The fourteenth edition, published in 1929, saw a considerable revision of the text, with much being dropped or shortened to make room for new topics. Nevertheless the eleventh edition formed the basis for every revision of the Encyclopædia Britannica until 1974, when the completely new fifteenth edition, based on modern information presentation, was published. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

The eleventh edition'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, imperialism was largely unchallenged, much of the world was still ruled by monarchs, and the horrors of the modern world wars were still in the future. They are an invaluable resource for topics dropped from modern encyclopedias, particularly in biography and the history of science and technology. As a literary text, the encyclopedia holds value as a voice of early 20th-century prose. The encyclopedia abounds in the use of pathetic fallacy and other dated literary devices which often confound a modern reader, yet portions have some appeal to the modern literary reader.^[2] A cultural artifact is an man-made object which gives information about the culture of its creator and users. ... The British Empire in 1897, marked in pink, the traditional colour for Imperial British dominions on maps. ... Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires. ... Look up monarch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... There have been two World Wars, now more commonly known as World War I or First World War (from 1914 to 1918), and World War II or Second World War (from 1939 to 1945). ... In literary criticism, the pathetic fallacy is the description of inanimate natural objects in a manner that endows them with human emotions, thoughts, sensations and feelings. ... Novels and short stories do not simply come from nowhere. ...

Notable commentaries on the Eleventh Edition

1913 advertisement for the eleventh edition

Sir Kenneth Clark, in Another Part of the Wood (1974), 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 encyclopaedia 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." This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free content hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. ... This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free content hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. ... Sir Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM CH KCB, (July 13, 1903 – May 21, 1983) was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and the most famous art historian of his generation. ... Portrait of Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767 Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher and writer. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 ? January 4, 1965) was a poet, dramatist and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of twentieth century Modernist poetry. ...

Amos Urban Shirk, who read both the entire eleventh and fourteenth editions in the 1930s, said he found the fourteenth edition to be a "big improvement" over the eleventh, stating that "most of the material had been completely rewritten". Amos Urban Shirk (1890? – October 20, 1956) was an American businessman, author and prodigious reader of encyclopedias. ...

Robert Collison, in Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout The Ages (1966), wrote of the eleventh edition that it "was probably the finest edition of the Britannica ever issued, and it ranks with the Italiana and the Espasa as one of the three greatest encyclopaedias in the world. It was the last edition to be produced almost in its entirety in Britain, and its position in time as a summary of the world's knowledge just before the outbreak of World War I is particularly valuable." The first volume of the Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti or Italian Encyclopaedia of Science, Letters, and Arts was published in 1925. ... The Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana (also called Enciclopedia Espasa, or Enciclopedia Espasa-Calpe, after its publisher) is a Spanish encyclopaedia comprising 72 volumes (numbered from 1 to 70, with parts 18 and 28 consisting of two volumes each) published from 1908 to 1930 plus a ten-volume appendix published...

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: Like John says copyright law in the UK is u make something and its copyrighted but in america u must make a patent haaaa ...

• Then-common beliefs about race and ethnicity are no longer widely shared — for example, the entry for "Negro" states: "Mentally the negro is inferior to the white... the arrest or even deterioration of mental development [after adolescence] is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thoughts." The article about the American War of Independence attributes the success of the United States in part to "a population mainly of good English blood and instincts".
• Some articles are out of date with the most recent findings. For example the article about the origins of the Huns is inconsistent with recent genetic evidence.
• Some articles are out of date with most recent scientific methods. For example the article on Hottentots says "..the cranial capacity [of the Hottentots] is nearly the same (1300cc in the Bushman, 1365cc in the Hottentots) and on these anatomical grounds.. the two are of the same race."
• Many articles are now factually outdated, such as those on science, technology, and medicine, or about geographic places (for example mentioning rail connections and ferry stops in towns that today no longer employ such transport).
• Even where the facts might still be accurate, new information, theories and perspectives developed since 1911 have substantially changed the way the same facts might be interpreted. For example, the modern interpretation of the history of the Visigoths is very different from that reflected in the eleventh edition which used the now out-of-favor Great Man method. There are no entries for Visigoth or Goth; rather the history of the tribe is found under the entry for Alaric I.

The eleventh edition has become a commonly quoted source, both because of the reputation of the Britannica at that time and because it is now in the public domain and has been made available on the Internet. The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 has been used as a source for many modern projects, such as Wikipedia and the Gutenberg Encyclopedia. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. ... Negro means black in the Spanish, Portuguese and ancient Italian languages, being derived from the Latin word niger of the same meaning. ... The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war fought primarily between Great Britain and revolutionaries within thirteen of her North American colonies. ... The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes who appeared in Europe in the 4th century, the most famous person being Attila. ... The Khoikhoi (men of men) or Khoi are a division of the Khoisan ethnic group of south-western Africa, closely related to the Bushmen (San). ... yt dftj cgh cjhgScience in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a level of technological mastery sufficient to leave the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ... Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury. ... The Visigoths, originally Tervingi, or Vesi (the noble ones), one of the two main branches of the Goths (of which the Ostrogothi were the other), were one of the loosely-termed Germanic peoples that disturbed the late Roman Empire. ... HIS MAJESTY KING_Abdulrehman I Abdulrehman Jeylani Mohammed al-osmani -ARABIC(عبدالرحمن جيلاني محمدالعثماني)known as the great man is th somali nation leader was born in 1407(Dec_1986) in somalia he was a medical student in sudan between(2004--2009) he has a national somali ideology wich is based on the cruel fighting... An 1894 photogravure of Alaric I taken from a painting by Ludwig Thiersch. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project. ...

Gutenberg Encyclopedia

The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is actually the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, renamed to address Britannica's trademark concerns. As of November 2006, Project Gutenberg only holds an electronic version of Volume 1 (in ASCII text only), the first portion of Volume 2, and part of volume 4. Distributed Proofreaders are 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 postprocessing and assembly is currently underway for volumes 2 through 5, and formal proofreading on volume 6. 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Project Gutenberg (often abbreviated as PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive, and distribute cultural works. ... Distributed Proofreaders (commonly abbreviated as DP or PGDP) is a project to support the development of e-texts for Project Gutenberg. ...

References

1. ^ Gillian Thomas (1992). A Position to Command Respect: Women and the Eleventh Britannica New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810825678.
2. ^ ^a b *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 067176747X

1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ...

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ...

Free, public-domain resources

• Full-page scans in tiff format, at Tim Starling's Wikisource page. Probably requires the AlternaTiff plugin. In particular, see:
  • In Volume 1, the "Prefatory Note" and "Editorial Introduction," which discuss the history and objectives of the edition. (These, and the different Prefatory Note from the Handy Volume edition of 1915, are also included in the Wikisource 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.)
  • The article on Encyclopaedia
• Project Gutenberg Volume I
• The Project Gutenberg Volume II

This article is about TIFF, the computer image format. ...

Versions of this public domain work claiming copyright

• LoveToKnow Classic Encyclopedia World Wide Web edition, "based on" the 1911 encyclopædia. It is sourced from a raw, unproofread OCR-scanned version, without the illustrations: it contains a number of 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 non-Latin script. Around July 10, 2006, the site was relaunched as a wiki using MediaWiki software. Wikilinks have been inserted, apparently automatically, and often with odd results. The wiki allows contributors to correct transcription and linking errors, and to add (in "what's new" pages) new information. An introductory page reads, in part: To the extent permitted by applicable law, all content, including but not limited to edits, changes and additions are © 2002 - 2006 by LoveToKnow Corp. This implies that the content should not be regarded public domain. Determining actual copyright status may require legal advice.
• Online 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. World Wide Web, OCR-scanned version of the encyclopædia, that has scanning errors. This source is very unreliable; for example, long articles (such as "Telescope") may contain only the first quarter of the original information. Links have been inserted, apparently automatically and frequently leading in irrelevant directions. There are also French and German translations, of unknown origin. Readers are invited to submit corrections and additions using a web form, and the content cannot be assumed to be original 1911 material. At the bottom of a page the following footnote can be seen: Site © 2006 - Net Industries.

WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a global, read-write information space. ... Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is computer software designed to translate images of handwritten or typewritten text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text, or to translate pictures of characters into a standard encoding scheme representing them (e. ... July 10 is the 191st day (192nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 174 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A wiki (IPA: <WICK-ee> or <WEE-kee>[1]) is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. ... MediaWiki is a wiki software package licensed under the GNU General Public License. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge&#8212;writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others&#8212;in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... Legal advice is the giving of a formal and binding opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law in exchange for financial or other compensation. ...

Articles about the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

• 'Information ... Slightly Coloured by Prejudice', by Lawrence Biemiller, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Notes From Academe, Volume 52, Issue 47, Page A40. (Last accessed September 25 2006).
• "Music and art in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica" by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, 25 August 2006)