Encyclopædia Britannica, the eleventh edition

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time. This edition of the encyclopedia is now in the public domain, but the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic. Some articles have special value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Background[link]

The 1911 eleventh edition was assembled with the management of American publisher Horace Everett Hooper. Hugh Chisholm, who had edited the previous edition, was appointed editor in chief, with Walter Alison Phillips as his principal assistant editor.^[1]

Originally, Hooper bought 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 was published during 1902. Hooper's association with The Times ceased during 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 make it more popular.^{[citation needed]} American marketing methods also assisted sales. Some 11% of the contributors were American, and a New York office was established to manage that part of the enterprise.^{[citation needed]}

The initials of the encyclopedia's contributors appear at the end of selected articles, or at the end of a section in the case of longer articles, such as that on China, and a key is given in each volume to these initials. Some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time, such as Edmund Gosse, J. B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Peter Kropotkin, T. H. Huxley and William Michael Rossetti. Among the then lesser-known contributors were some who would later become distinguished, 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 much abridged. The best-known authors generally contributed only a single article or part of an article. Most of the work was done by journalists, British Museum scholars and other scholars. The 1911 edition for the first time included a number of female contributors, with 34 women contributing articles to the edition.^[2]

The eleventh edition introduced a number of changes of 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 print type was kept in galley proofs 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 not to include long treatise-length articles. Even though the overall length of the work was about the same as that of its predecessor, the number of articles had increased from 17,000 to 40,000. It was also the first edition of Britannica to include biographies of living people.

According to Coleman and Simmons, p 32^[3] the content of the encyclopedia was organised as follows:

Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago during 1920, completing the Britannica's transition to becoming a substantially American publication.^{[citation needed]}

During 1922, an additional three volumes (also edited by Hugh Chisholm), were published, covering the events of the intervening years, including World War I. These, together with a reprint of the eleventh edition, formed the twelfth edition of the work. A similar thirteenth edition, consisting of three volumes plus a reprint of the twelfth edition, was published during 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 apparent that a more thorough update of the work was required.

The fourteenth edition, published during 1929, was considerably revised, with much text eliminated or abridged to make room for new topics. Nevertheless, the eleventh edition was the basis of every later version of the Encyclopædia Britannica until the completely new fifteenth edition was published during 1974, using modern information presentation.

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 maximum, imperialism was largely unchallenged, much of the world was still ruled by monarchs, and the tragedy of the modern world wars were still in the future. They are an invaluable resource for topics omitted from modern encyclopedias, particularly for biography and the history of science and technology. As a literary text, the encyclopedia has value as an example of early 20th-century prose. For example, it employs literary devices, such as pathetic fallacy (attribution of human-like traits to impersonal forces or inanimate objects), which are not as common in modern reference texts.^[3]

Notable commentaries on the Eleventh Edition[link]

1913 advertisement for the eleventh edition

In 1917, using the pseudonym of S. S. Van Dine, the US art critic and author Willard Huntington Wright published Misinforming a Nation, a 200+ page criticism of inaccuracies and biases of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. Wright claimed that Britannica was "characterized by misstatement, inexcusable omissions, rabid and patriotic prejudices, personal animosities, blatant errors of fact, scholastic ignorance, gross neglect of non-British culture, an astounding egotism, and an undisguised contempt for American progress."^[4]

Amos Urban Shirk, who read both the entire eleventh and fourteenth editions during 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".

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 Enciclopedia Italiana and the Espasa as one of the three greatest encyclopaedias. 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."

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." (Clark refers to Eliot's 1929 poem "Animula".) It was one of Jorge Luis Borges's favorite works, and was a source of information and enjoyment for his entire working life.^[5]

In 1912 mathematician L. C. Karpinski criticised the eleventh edition for inaccuracies in articles on the history of mathematics, none of which had been written by specialists.^[6]

English writer and former priest Joseph McCabe claimed in Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1947) that Britannica was censored under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church after the 11th edition.^[7]

Authorities ranging from Virginia Woolf to professors criticised the 11th edition for having bourgeois and old-fashioned opinions on art, literature, and social sciences.^[8] A contemporary Cornell professor, Edward B. Titchener, wrote in 1912, "the new Britannica does not reproduce the psychological atmosphere of its day and generation... Despite the halo of authority, and despite the scrutiny of the staff, the great bulk of the secondary articles in general psychology ... are not adapted to the requirements of the intelligent reader."^[9]

Critics have charged several editions with racism and sexism.^[8][10] The eleventh edition characterises the Ku Klux Klan as protecting the white race and restoring order to the American South after the American Civil War, citing the need to "control the negro", and "the frequent occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men upon white women."^[11][12] Similarly, the "Civilization" article argues for eugenics, stating that it is irrational to "propagate low orders of intelligence, to feed the ranks of paupers, defectives and criminals ... which to-day constitute so threatening an obstacle to racial progress."^[13] The eleventh edition has no biography of Marie Curie, despite her winning of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, although she is mentioned briefly under the biography of her husband Pierre Curie.^[14] The Britannica employed a large female editorial staff that wrote hundreds of articles for which they were not given credit.^[8]

1911 Britannica in the 21st century[link]

The 1911 edition is no longer restricted by copyright, and it is available in several more modern forms. While it may have been a reliable description of the consensus of its time, for some modern readers, the Encyclopedia has several major errors, ethnocentric remarks, and other issues:

• Contemporary opinions of race and ethnicity are included in the Encyclopedia's articles. 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."^[15] 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".^[16]
• Many articles are now outdated factually, in particular those concerning science, technology, international and municipal law, and medicine. For example, the article on the vitamin deficiency disease beriberi speculates that it is caused by a fungus, vitamins not having been discovered at the time. Articles about geographic places mention rail connections and ferry stops in towns that no longer employ such transport presently.
• 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 now very different from that of 1911; readers of the eleventh edition who want to know about the social customs and political life of the tribe and its warriors are told to look up the entry for their king, Alaric I.

The eleventh edition of Encyclopædia Britannica has become a commonly quoted source, both because of the reputation of the Britannica and because it is now in the public domain and has been made available on the Internet. It has been used as a source by many modern projects including Wikipedia and the Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia.

[edit] Gutenberg Encyclopedia

The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, renamed to address Britannica's trademark concerns. Project Gutenberg's offerings are summarized below in the External links section and include text and graphics. Distributed Proofreaders are currently working on producing a complete electronic edition of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

References[link]

External links[link]

Free, public-domain sources for 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica text[link]

• Encyclopædia Britannica 11th ed. 1911, separate volumes in several formats, on the Internet Archive:

• Full-page scans in TIFF format.
• Flash reader (Empanel) with full-page scans

• Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia:

Other sources for 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica text[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Misinforming a Nation

• The "LoveToKnow Classic Encyclopedia" is a wiki that is "based" on the original encyclopædia text, and claims copyright on the modified text.
• The JRank "Online Encyclopedia" includes original and contributed articles; the originals may have been edited and the collection is subject to a claimed copyright.
• Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 unedited, html version, from scan/ocr of the original text, with interactive alphabetical index, and Google translation into Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Russian, Hindi, Arabic and Portuguese.

The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia"), published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,400 contributors. It is regarded as one of the most scholarly of English language encyclopaedias.^[1][2]

The Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still being produced. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland as three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size; the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1809) it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th edition (1875–1889) and the 11th edition (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Beginning with the 11th edition, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal in the North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted and every article updated on a schedule. In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced it would no longer continue to publish its printed editions, instead focusing on its online version, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Its final print edition was in 2010, a 32-volume set.^[3]

The 15th edition has a three-part structure: a 12-volume Micropædia of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume Macropædia of long articles (two to 310 pages) and a single Propædia volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The Micropædia is meant for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the Macropædia; readers are advised to study the Propædia outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. The size of the Britannica has remained roughly constant over 70 years, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Although publication has been based in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has maintained British spelling.

History[link]

Ownership has changed many times, past owners including the Scottish publisher A & C Black, Horace Everett Hooper, Sears Roebuck and William Benton. The present owner of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. is Jacqui Safra, a Swiss billionaire and actor. 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.^[4] To remain competitive, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has stressed the reputation of the Britannica, reduced its price and production costs, and developed electronic versions on CD-ROM, DVD, and the World Wide Web. Since the early 1930s, the company has promoted spin-off reference works.^[5]

Editions[link]

Title page of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica

The Britannica has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd and 5th editions (see the Table below). 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 re-organisation in 1985, but the updated, current version is still known as the 15th.

Throughout history, the Britannica has had two aims: to be an excellent reference book and to provide educational material.^[6] In 1974, the 15th edition adopted a third goal: to systematise all human knowledge.^[7] The history of the Britannica can be divided into five eras, punctuated by changes in management or re-organisation of the dictionary.

1768–1826[link]

In the first era (1st–6th editions, 1768–1826), the Britannica was managed and published by its founders, Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, by Archibald Constable, and by others. The Britannica was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh as the Encyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan. In part, it was conceived in reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (published 1751–1772), which had been inspired by Chambers's Cyclopaedia (first edition 1728). The Britannica was primarily a Scottish enterprise; it is one of the most enduring legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment.^[8] In this era, the Britannica moved from being a three-volume set (1st edition) compiled by one young editor—William Smellie^[9]—to a 20-volume set written by numerous authorities. Several other encyclopaedias competed throughout this period, among them editions of Abraham Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.^[10] and David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.

The early 19th-century editions of Encyclopædia Britannica included seminal research such as Thomas Young's article on Egypt, which included the translation of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone (pictured).

1827–1901[link]

During the second era (7th–9th editions, 1827–1901), the Britannica was managed by the Edinburgh publishing firm, A & C Black. Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notably Macvey Napier, others were attracted by the Britannica'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. The first English-born editor-in-chief was Thomas Spencer Baynes, who oversaw the production of the 9th edition; dubbed the "Scholar's Edition", the 9th is the most scholarly Britannica.^[11][12] After 1880, Baynes was assisted by William Robertson Smith.^[13] No biographies of living persons were included.^[14] James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Huxley were special advisors on science.^[15] However, by the close of the 19th century, the 9th edition was outdated and the Britannica faced financial difficulties.

1901–1973[link]

In the third era (10th–14th editions, 1901–73), the Britannica was managed by American businessmen who introduced direct marketing and door-to-door sales. The American owners gradually simplified articles, making them less scholarly for a mass market. The 10th edition was a nine-volume supplement to the 9th, 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.^[12] When Hooper fell into financial difficulties, the Britannica was managed by Sears Roebuck for 18 years (1920–23, 1928–43). In 1932, the vice-president of Sears, Elkan Harrison Powell, assumed presidency of the Britannica; 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.^[5] Powell developed new educational products that built upon the Britannica's reputation. In 1943, ownership passed to William B. Benton, who managed the Britannica until his death in 1973. Benton set up the Benton Foundation, which managed the Britannica until 1996. In 1968, near the end of this era, the Britannica celebrated its bicentennial.

U.S. advertisement for the 11th edition from the May 1913 issue of National Geographic Magazine

1974–1994[link]

In the fourth era (1974–94), the Britannica introduced its 15th edition, which was re-organised into three parts: the Micropædia, the Macropædia, and the Propædia. 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 of Britannica from 1965),^[16] the Britannica sought not only to be a good reference work and educational tool but to systematise all human knowledge. The absence of a separate index and the grouping of articles into parallel encyclopaedias (the Micro- and Macropædia) provoked a "firestorm of criticism" of the initial 15th edition.^[11][17] In response, the 15th edition was completely re-organised and indexed for a re-release in 1985. This second version of the 15th edition continued to be published and revised until the 2010 print version. The official title of the 15th edition is the New Encyclopædia Britannica, although it has also been promoted as Britannica 3.^[11]

1994–present[link]

In the fifth era (1994–present), digital versions have been developed and released on optical media and online. In 1996, the Britannica 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 Inc., 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 the Britannica 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.^[3][18]

Dedications[link]

The Britannica was dedicated to the reigning British 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.^[11] Thus, the 11th edition is "dedicated by Permission to His Majesty George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, and to William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America."^[19] 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."^[20] Consistent with this tradition, the 2007 version of the current 15th edition was "dedicated by permission to the current President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II,"^[21] while the 2010 version of the current 15th edition is "dedicated by permission to Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II."^[22]

Critical and popular assessments[link]

Reputation[link]

A copperplate by Andrew Bell from the 1st edition.

Since the 3rd edition, the Britannica has enjoyed a popular and critical reputation for general excellence.^[11][23][24] Various editions from the 3rd to the 9th were pirated for sale in the United States,^[12] beginning with Dobson's Encyclopaedia.^[25] On the release of the 14th edition, Time magazine dubbed the Britannica the "Patriarch of the Library".^[26] In a related advertisement, naturalist William Beebe was quoted as saying that the Britannica was "beyond comparison because there is no competitor."^[27] References to the Britannica can be found throughout English literature, most notably in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Red-Headed League". The tale was highlighted by the Lord Mayor of London, Gilbert Inglefield, at the bicentennial of the Britannica.^[28]

The Britannica has a reputation for summarising knowledge.^[29] To further their education, some people have devoted themselves to reading the entire Britannica, taking anywhere from three to 22 years to do so.^[12] When Fat'h Ali became the Shah of Persia in 1797, he was given a set of the Britannica's 3rd edition, which he read completely; after this feat, he extended his royal title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of the Encyclopædia Britannica."^[28] Writer George Bernard Shaw claimed to have read the complete 9th edition—except for the science articles^[12]—and Richard Evelyn Byrd took the Britannica as reading material for his five-month stay at the South Pole in 1934, while Philip Beaver read it during a sailing expedition. More recently, A.J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire magazine, read the entire 2002 version of the 15th edition, describing his experiences in the well-received 2004 book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Only two people are known to have read two independent editions: the author C. S. Forester^[12] and Amos Urban Shirk, an American businessman, who read the 11th and 14th editions, devoting roughly three hours per night for four and a half years to read the 11th.^[30] Several editors-in-chief of the Britannica are likely to have read their editions completely, such as William Smellie (1st edition), William Robertson Smith (9th edition), and Walter Yust (14th edition).

Awards[link]

The online Britannica won the 2005 Codie award for "Best Online Consumer Information Service";^[31] the Codie awards are granted yearly by the Software and Information Industry Association to recognise the best products among categories of software. In 2006, the Britannica was again a finalist.^[32] Similarly, the CD/DVD-ROM version of the Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, received the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers,^[33] and Codie awards in 2000, 2001 and 2002.^[34][35] On 15 July 2009, Encyclopædia Britannica was awarded a spot as one of "Top Ten Superbrands in the UK" by a panel of more than 2,000 independent reviewers, as reported by the BBC.^[36]

Coverage of topics[link]

Topics are chosen in part by reference to the Propædia "Outline of Knowledge".^[7] The bulk of the Britannica is devoted to geography (26% of the Macropædia), biography (14%), biology and medicine (11%), literature (7%), physics and astronomy (6%), religion (5%), art (4%), Western philosophy (4%), and law (3%).^[11] A complementary study of the Micropædia found that geography accounted for 25% of articles, science 18%, social sciences 17%, biography 17%, and all other humanities 25%.^[23] Writing in 1992, one reviewer judged that the "range, depth, and catholicity of coverage [of the Britannica] are unsurpassed by any other general Encyclopaedia."^[37]

The Britannica does not cover topics in equivalent detail; for example, the whole of Buddhism and most other religions is covered in a single Macropædia article, whereas 14 articles are devoted to Christianity, comprising nearly half of all religion articles.^[38] However, the Britannica has been lauded as the least biased of general Encyclopaedias marketed to Western readers^[11] and praised for its biographies of important women of all eras.^[23]

It can be stated without fear of contradiction that the 15th edition of the Britannica accords non-Western cultural, social, and scientific developments more notice than any general English-language encyclopedia currently on the market.

—Kenneth Kister, in Kister's Best Encyclopedias (1994)

Editorial choices[link]

The Britannica is occasionally criticised 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 poet Joachim du Bellay; editorial mistakes were also alleged, such as inconsistent sorting of Japanese biographies.^[39] Its elimination of the index was condemned, as was the apparently arbitrary division of articles into the Micropædia and Macropædia.^[11][17] Summing up, one critic called the initial 15th edition a "qualified failure...[that] cares more for juggling its format than for preserving information."^[39] More recently, reviewers from the American Library Association were surprised to find that most educational articles had been eliminated from the 1992 Macropædia, along with the article on psychology.^[40]

Britannica-appointed contributors are occasionally mistaken or unscientific. A notorious instance from the Britannica's early years is the rejection of Newtonian gravity by George Gleig, the chief editor of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), who wrote that gravity was caused by the classical element of fire.^[12] However, the Britannica has also staunchly defended a scientific approach to emotional topics, as it did with William Robertson Smith's articles on religion in the 9th edition, particularly his article stating that the Bible was not historically accurate (1875).^[12]

Wendy Doniger, who is on the editorial board of Britannica,^[41] has been criticised for her negative portrayal of Hinduism.^{[42][43][original research?]} Britannica's presentation of Hinduism has also been criticised.^[44]

Accuracy[link]

The Britannica has received criticism, especially as editions become outdated. It is expensive to produce a completely new edition of the Britannica,^[45] and its editors delay for as long as fiscally sensible (usually about 25 years).^[5] For example, despite continuous revision, the 14th edition became outdated after 35 years (1929–1964). When American physicist Harvey Einbinder detailed its failings in his 1964 book, The Myth of the Britannica,^[46] the encyclopaedia was provoked to produce the 15th edition, which required 10 years of work.^[11] It is still difficult to keep the Britannica current; one recent critic writes, "it is not difficult to find articles that are out-of-date or in need of revision", noting that the longer Macropædia articles are more likely to be outdated than the shorter Micropædia articles.^[11] Information in the Micropædia is sometimes inconsistent with the corresponding Macropædia article(s), mainly because of the failure to update one or the other.^[23][24] The bibliographies of the Macropædia articles have been criticised for being more out-of-date than the articles themselves.^[11][23][24]

An Irish newspaper, The Evening Herald, based in Dublin, said in February 2010 that Britannica offers a "farcically inaccurate version" of the country's history. An opposition Senator said: "This screwy version of events is a gross insult to our people and our history. That it is being used to educate our children is even more ridiculous." The Department of Education and Science, which paid €450,000 to give children in school online access to the Encyclopaedia, said it was "disappointed".^[47][48]

Speaking of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), Britannica's chief editor George Gleig wrote that "perfection seems to be incompatible with the nature of works constructed on such a plan, and embracing such a variety of subjects."^[49] In March 2006, the Britannica wrote, "we in no way mean to imply that Britannica is error-free; we have never made such a claim."^[50] The sentiment is expressed by its original editor, William Smellie:

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 of 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.

—William Smellie, in the Preface to the 1st edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica

However, Jorge Cauz (president of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.) asserted in 2012 that "Britannica [...] will always be factually correct."^[3]

Present status[link]

15th edition of the Britannica. The initial volume with the green spine is the Propædia; the red-spined and black-spined volumes are the Micropædia and the Macropædia, respectively. The last three volumes are the 2002 Book of the Year (black spine) and the two-volume index (cyan spine).

Print version[link]

Since 1985, the Britannica has had four parts: the Micropædia, the Macropædia, the Propædia, and a two-volume index. The Britannica's articles are found in the Micro- and Macropædia, which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 Macropædia has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007 Micropædia has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors.^[24] The Micropædia articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the Macropædia. The Macropædia articles are meant both as authoritative, well-written articles on their subjects and as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere.^[11] The longest article (310 pages) is on the United States, and resulted from the merger of the articles on the individual states.

Information can be found in the Britannica by following the cross-references in the Micropædia and Macropædia; however, these are sparse, averaging one cross-reference per page.^[23] Hence, readers are recommended to consult instead the alphabetical index or the Propædia, which organises the Britannica's contents by topic.^[51]

The core of the Propædia is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge.^[7] Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the Britannica's editors to decide which articles should be included in the Micro- and Macropædia.^[7] The Outline is also intended to be a study guide, to put subjects in their proper perspective, and to suggest a series of Britannica articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth.^[7] However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used, and reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia.^[40] The Propædia also has color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members, advisors, and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica.

Taken together, the Micropædia and Macropædia comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images.^[51] The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in the Britannica, together with 474,675 subentries under those topics.^[23] The Britannica generally prefers British spelling over American;^[23] for example, it uses colour (not color), centre (not center), and encyclopaedia (not encyclopedia). However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as defense rather than defence.^[52] Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color: see Colour."

Since 1936, the articles of the Britannica have been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of them considered for revision each year.^[5][23] According to one Britannica website, 46% of its articles were revised over the past three years;^[53] however, according to another Britannica web-site, only 35% of the articles were revised.^[54]

The alphabetisation of articles in the Micropædia and Macropædia follows strict rules.^[55] Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as "1812, War of" are alphabetised 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 organised first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus, Charles III of France precedes Charles I of England, listed in Britannica as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. (That is, they are alphabetised as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organised 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 announced as a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution.^[56] The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990 when 120,000 sets were sold, but it dropped to 40,000 in 1996.^[57] 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition were printed, of which 8,000 had been sold as of 2012.^[58] By late April 2012, the remaining copies of the 2010 edition had sold out at Britannica's online store.

Related printed material[link]

Britannica Junior was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamed Britannica Junior Encyclopædia in 1963.^[59] It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing.

Children's Britannica

A British Children's Britannica edited by John Armitage was issued in London in 1960.^[60] Its contents were determined largely by the 11-plus standardised tests given in Britain.^[61] Britannica introduced the Children's Britannica to the U.S. market in 1988, aimed at ages 7 to 14.

In 1961 a 16 volume Young Children's Encyclopaedia was issued for children just learning to read.^[61]

My First Britannica is aimed at children ages six to twelve, and the Britannica Discovery Library is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991).^[62]

There have been and are several abridged Britannica encyclopaedias. The single-volume Britannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume Britannica.^[63] Compton's by Britannica, first published in 2007, incorporating the former Compton's Encyclopedia, is aimed at 10–17 year olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages.^[64]

Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually a Book of the Year covering the past year's events, which is available online back to the 1994 edition (covering the events of 1993). The company also publishes several specialised reference works, such as Shakespeare: The Essential Guide to the Life and Works of the Bard (Wiley, 2006).

Optical disc, online, and mobile versions[link]

The Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2006 DVD contains over 55 million words and just over 100,000 articles.^[65] This includes 73,645 regular Britannica articles, with the remainder drawn from the Britannica Student Encyclopædia, the Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia and the Britannica Book of the Year (1993–2004), plus a few "classic" articles from early editions of the encyclopaedia. 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 from Merriam-Webster.

Britannica Online is a website with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly.^[66] It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from The New York Times and the BBC. As of 2009, 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.^[67] As of 2006, subscriptions were available on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis.^[68] Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers constitute an important part of Britannica's business. Articles may be accessed online for free, but only a few opening lines of text are displayed. Beginning in early 2007, the Britannica made articles freely available if they are hyperlinked from an external site;^[69]

On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that it was working with mobile phone search company AskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopaedia.^[70] Users will be able to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow will search Britannica's 28,000-article concise encyclopaedia to return an answer to the query. Daily topical features sent directly to users' mobile phones are also planned.

Wikinews has related news: Encyclopædia Britannica fights back against Wikipedia, soon to let users edit contents

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 a wiki), with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced.^[71][72] Approved contributions would be credited,^[73] though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. perpetual, irrevocable license to those contributions.^[74]

On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, announced that the company would be accepting edits and additions to the online Britannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopaedia will not be affected by the changes.^[75] Individuals wishing to edit the Britannica website will have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content.^[76] All edits submitted will be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by the encyclopaedia's professional staff.^[76] Contributions from non-academic users will sit in a separate section from the expert-generated Britannica content,^[77] as will content submitted by non-Britannica scholars.^[78] Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, will also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles.^[75][78] Official Britannica material would carry a "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content.^[79]

On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development company Concentric Sky to launch a series of iPhone products aimed at the K-12 market.^[80] On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product line to Intel's Intel Atom-based Netbooks.^[81][82]

Personnel and management[link]

Contributors[link]

The 2007 print version of the Britannica has 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, astronomer Carl Sagan, and surgeon Michael DeBakey.^[83] Roughly a quarter of the contributors are deceased, some as long ago as 1947 (Alfred North Whitehead), while another quarter are retired or emeritus. Most (approximately 98%) 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 is Christine Sutton of the University of Oxford, who contributed 24 articles on particle physics.

While Britannica's authors have included writers such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky, as well as notable independent encyclopaedists such as Isaac Asimov, some have been criticised for lack of expertise:^[84]

With a temerity almost appalling, [the Britannica 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.

—Prof. George L. Burr, in the American Historical Review (1911)

Staff[link]

Portrait of Thomas Spencer Baynes, editor of the 9th edition. Painted in 1888, it now hangs in the Senate Room of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Dale Hoiberg, a sinologist, is the Britannica's Senior Vice President and editor-in-chief.^[85] Among his predecessors as editors-in-chief were Hugh Chisholm (1902–1924), James Louis Garvin (1926–1932), Franklin Henry Hooper (1932–1938),^[86] Walter Yust (1938–1960), Harry Ashmore (1960–1963), Warren E. Preece (1964–1968, 1969–1975), Sir William Haley (1968–1969), Philip W. Goetz (1979–1991),^[11] and Robert McHenry (1992–1997).^[87] Anita Wolff and Theodore Pappas serve as the current Deputy Editor and Executive Editor, respectively.^[85] Prior Executive Editors include John V. Dodge (1950–1964) and Philip W. Goetz.

The current editorial staff of the Britannica includes five Senior Editors and nine Associate Editors, supervised by Dale Hoiberg and four others. The editorial staff help to write the articles of the Micropædia and some sections of the Macropædia.^[88]

The preparation and publication of the Encyclopædia Britannica requires trained staff. According to the final page of the 2007 Propædia, the staff are organised into ten departments:^[89]

1. Editorial staff (19 editors and 1 executive assistant)
2. Art and Cartography (9 employees)
3. Compositional Technology and Design (4 employees)
4. Copy Department (12 employees)
5. Editorial and Publishing Technologies (5 employees)
6. Information Management (9 employees)
7. Media Asset Management and Production Control (4 employees)
8. Reference Librarians (3 employees)
9. World Data (5 employees)
10. Manufacturing (1 employee)

Some of these departments are organised hierarchically. For example, the copy editors are divided into 4 copy editors, 2 senior copy editors, 4 supervisors, plus a coordinator and a director. Similarly, the Editorial department is headed by Dale Hoiberg and assisted by four others; they oversee the work of five senior editors, nine associate editors, and one executive assistant.

Editorial advisors[link]

The Britannica has an Editorial Board of Advisors, which includes 12 distinguished scholars:^[90][91] author Nicholas Carr, religion scholar Wendy Doniger, political economist Benjamin M. Friedman, Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb, computer scientist David Gelernter, Physics Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian, philosopher Thomas Nagel, cognitive scientist Donald Norman, musicologist Don Michael Randel, Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch.

The Propædia and its Outline of Knowledge were produced by dozens of editorial advisors under the direction of Mortimer J. Adler.^[92] 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). The Propædia also lists just under 4,000 advisors who were consulted for the unsigned Micropædia articles.^[93]

Corporate structure[link]

In January 1996, the Britannica was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra,^[94] 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.^[95] A new company, Britannica.com Inc. was spun off in 1999 to develop the digital versions of the Britannica; Yannias assumed the role of CEO in the new company, while that of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. remained vacant for two years. Yannias' tenure at Britannica.com Inc. was marked by missteps, large lay-offs and financial losses.^[96] In 2001, Yannias was replaced by Ilan Yeshua, who reunited the leadership of the two companies.^[97] Yannias later returned to investment management, but remains on the Britannica's Board of Directors.

In 2003, former management consultant Jorge Aguilar-Cauz was appointed President of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Cauz is the senior executive and reports directly to the Britannica's Board of Directors. Cauz has been pursuing alliances with other companies and extending the Britannica brand to new educational and reference products, continuing the strategy pioneered by former CEO Elkan Harrison Powell in the mid-1930s.^[98]

Under Safra's ownership, the company has experienced financial difficulties, and has responded by reducing the price of its products and implementing drastic cost cuts. According to a 2003 report in the New York Post, the Britannica management has eliminated employee 401(k) accounts and encouraged the use of free images. These changes have had negative impacts, as freelance contributors have waited up to six months for checks and the Britannica staff have gone years without pay rises.^[99]

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. now owns registered trademarks on the words Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Macropædia, Micropædia, and Propædia, as well as on its thistle logo. It has exercised its trademark rights as recently as 2005.^[100][101]

Competition[link]

As the Britannica is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialised encyclopaedias such as the Encyclopaedia of Mathematics or the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, the Britannica's main competitor was the general encyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and, soon thereafter, Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. In the 20th century, successful competitors included Collier's Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Americana, and the World Book Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, the Britannica was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English language encyclopaedia,^[29] especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors.^[11][23] The print version of the Britannica was significantly more expensive than its competitors.^[11][23]

Since the early 1990s, the Britannica has faced new challenges from digital information sources. The Internet, facilitated by the development of search 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 as Google Books, MIT's release of its educational materials and the open PubMed Central library of the National Library of Medicine.^[102][103] In general, the Internet tends to provide more current coverage than print media, due to the ease with which material on the Internet can be updated.^[104] In rapidly changing fields such as science, technology, politics, culture and modern history, the Britannica has struggled to stay up-to-date, a problem first analysed systematically by its former editor Walter Yust.^[20] Although the Britannica is now available both in multimedia form and over the Internet, its preeminence is being challenged by other online encyclopaedias, such as Wikipedia.^[3]

Print encyclopaedias[link]

The Encyclopædia Britannica has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively.^[11][23][24] A well-known comparison is that of Kenneth Kister, who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the Britannica with two comparable encyclopaedias, Collier's Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Americana.^[11] 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 and Uzbekistan – 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 between B− and B+, chiefly because none of the encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, the Britannica received one "D" and seven "A"s, Encyclopedia Americana received eight "A"s, and Collier's received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus, Britannica received an average score of 92% for accuracy to Americana's 95% and Collier's 92%. The 1994 Britannica was faulted for publishing an inflammatory story about Charles Drew that had long been discredited. In the timeliness category, Britannica averaged an 86% to Americana's 90% and Collier's 85%. After a more thorough qualitative comparison of all three encyclopaedias, Kister recommended Collier's Encyclopedia as the superior encyclopaedia, primarily on the strength of its excellent writing, balanced presentation and easy navigation.^{[citation needed]}

Collier's has not been in print since 1998; the Encyclopedia Americana was last published in 2006^{[citation needed]} and Britannica announced the discontinuation of its print editions in 2012.

Digital encyclopaedias on optical media[link]

The most notable competitor of the Britannica among CD/DVD-ROM digital encyclopaedias was Encarta,^[105] now discontinued, a modern, multimedia encyclopaedia that incorporated three print encyclopaedias: Funk & Wagnalls, Collier's and the New Merit Scholar. Encarta was the top-selling multimedia encyclopaedia, based on total US retail sales from January 2000 to February 2006.^[106] Both occupied the same price range, with the 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate CD or DVD costing US$50^[107] and the Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 DVD costing US$45.^[108] The Britannica contains 100,000 articles and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus (US only), and offers Primary and Secondary School editions.^[107] 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.^[108] Like Encarta, the Britannica has been criticised 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.^[105] Like the Britannica, Encarta was available online by subscription, although some content could be accessed for free.^[109]

Internet encyclopaedias[link]

Online alternatives to the Britannica include Wikipedia, a freely available Web-based free-content encyclopaedia. A key difference between the two encyclopaedias lies in article authorship. The 699 Macropædia articles are generally written by identified contributors, and the roughly 65,000 Micropædia articles are the work of the editorial staff and identified outside consultants. Thus, a Britannica article either has known authorship or a set of possible authors (the editorial staff). With the exception of the editorial staff, most of the Britannica's contributors are experts in their field—some are Nobel laureates.^[83] By contrast, the articles of Wikipedia are written by people with varying levels of expertise: most do not claim any particular expertise, and of those who do, many are anonymous and have no verifiable credentials.^[110] Another difference is the pace of article change: the Britannica was published in print every few years, while many of Wikipedia's articles are frequently updated. Robert McHenry, paid by the Encyclopaedia, stated that Wikipedia cannot hope to rival the Britannica in accuracy.^[111]

In 2005, the journal Nature chose articles from both websites in a wide range of 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.

In the end, 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 in Britannica, an average of 3.86 mistakes per article for Wikipedia and 2.92 for Britannica.^[112][113] In its detailed 20-page rebuttal, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. called Nature's study flawed and misleading^[50] and called for a "prompt" retraction. It noted that two of the articles in the study were taken from a Britannica yearbook and not the encyclopaedia, and another two were from Compton's Encyclopedia (called the Britannica Student Encyclopedia on the company's website). The rebuttal went on to mention that some of the articles presented to reviewers were combinations of several articles, and that other articles were merely excerpts but were penalised for factual omissions. The company also noted that several of what Nature called errors were minor spelling variations, and that others were matters of interpretation. Nature defended its story and declined to retract, stating that, as it was comparing Wikipedia with the web version of Britannica, it used whatever relevant material was available on Britannica's website.^[114]

Interviewed in February 2009, the managing director of Britannica UK said:

Wikipedia is a fun site to use and has a lot of interesting entries on there, but their approach wouldn't work for Encyclopædia 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.^[67]

Edition summary[link]

See also[link]

	United Kingdom portal
	Books portal

• List of encyclopaedias by branch of knowledge
• List of encyclopaedias by language (English)
• List of historical encyclopaedias
• List of online encyclopaedias

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Encyclopædia Britannica

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Encyclopædia Britannica

Look up Britannica or britannica in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikinews has related news: Encyclopaedia Britannica to stop publishing after 244 years

Official site

• www.britannica.com — official site

Earlier editions (in the public domain in the US)

• Preface to the first edition of the Britannica, by William Smellie.
• The article "History" in the third edition of the Britannica.
• Articles and illustrations from the ninth and 10th editions of the Britannica.
• Scanned version of the famous eleventh edition of the Britannica.
• Text version of the eleventh edition of the Britannica. (Partial)

Historical articles

• "Encyclopædia Britannica". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
• 1768–2005:l'aventure Britannica. History of the Britannica, from the French Britannica site.
• Scotland and the ultimate reference book at the Wayback Machine (archived 16 May 2007), history of the Britannica on The Scotsman's Heritage and Culture pages.

Recent events

• Technical aspects of the Britannica's online and CD/DVD-ROM editions.
• Britannica disagrees with Wikipedia comparison study. Archived from the original on 16 April 2009.
• To wire or not to wire? Encyclopædia Britannica vs. Microsoft Encarta

A comparison of the two encyclopaedias by Panagiota Alevizou, published in the Educational Technology & Society journal.

• Encyclopædia Britannica To Follow Modified Wikipedia Model | Epicenter from Wired.com

Business history

• "Dusting off the Britannica". Article from BusinessWeek magazine (1997).
• "Death of a salesforce". Article from Salon (1996). Archived from the original on 14 May 2011.
• "The Work of the Encyclopedia in the Age of Electronic Reproduction". Article by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang in First Monday.
• The Crisis at Encyclopædia Britannica Kellogg School of Management

Edmund Kean as Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts, b. 1816

Edmund Kean (4 November 1787 – 15 May 1833) was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.

Early life[link]

Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey. Kean made his first appearance on the stage, aged four, as Cupid in Jean-Georges Noverre’s ballet of Cymon. As a child his vivacity, cleverness and ready affection made him a universal favourite, but his harsh circumstances and lack of discipline, both helped develop self-reliance and fostered wayward tendencies. About 1794 a few benevolent persons paid for him to go to school, where he did well; but finding the restraint intolerable, he shipped as a cabin boy at Portsmouth. Finding life at sea even more restricting, he pretended to be both deaf and lame so skillfully that he deceived the doctors at Madeira.

On his return to England he sought the protection of his uncle Moses Kean, mimic, ventriloquist and general entertainer, who, besides continuing his pantomimic studies, introduced him to the study of Shakespeare. At the same time Miss Charlotte Tidswell, an actress who had been especially kind to him from infancy, taught him the principles of acting.

On the death of his uncle she took charge of him, and he began the systematic study of the principal Shakespearean characters, displaying the peculiar originality of his genius by interpretations entirely different from those of John Philip Kemble, then considered the great exponent of these roles. Kean’s talents and interesting countenance caused a Mrs Clarke to adopt him, but he took offence at the comments of a visitor and suddenly left her house and went back to his old surroundings.

Discovery[link]

Aged fourteen, he obtained an engagement to play leading characters for twenty nights in York Theatre, appearing as Hamlet, Hastings and Cato.

Shortly afterwards, while he was in Richardson's Theatre, a travelling theatre company, the rumour of his abilities reached George III, who commanded him to appear at Windsor Castle. He subsequently joined Saunders’s circus, where in the performance of an equestrian feat he fell and broke both legs—the accident leaving traces of swelling in his insteps throughout his life.

About this time he picked up music from Charles Incledon, dancing from D’Egville, and fencing from Angelo. In 1807 he played leading parts in the Belfast theatre with Sarah Siddons, who began by calling him “a horrid little man” and on further experience of his ability said that he “played very, very well”, but that “there was too little of him to make a great actor”. In 1808 he joined Samuel Butler’s provincial troupe and went on to marry Mary Chambers of Waterford, the leading actress on 17th July. His wife bore him 2 sons.

Drury Lane and New York[link]

For several years his prospects were very gloomy, but in 1814 the committee of Drury Lane Theatre, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, resolved to give him a chance among the “experiments” they were making to win a return of popularity. When the expectation of his first appearance in London was close upon him he was so feverish that he exclaimed “If I succeed I shall go mad.” Unable to afford medical treatment for some time, his elder son died the day after he signed the 3-year Drury Lane contract.

His opening at Drury Lane on 26 January 1814 as Shylock roused the audience to almost uncontrollable enthusiasm. Successive appearances in Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear demonstrated his mastery of the range of tragic emotion. His triumph was so great that he himself said on one occasion, "I could not feel the stage under me."

In 1817, a local playwright named Charles Bucke submitted his play The Italians, or; The Fatal Accusation to Drury Lane for which Kean was to play the lead. The play was well received by both council and actors until Kean seemed to have a change of heart and began to make several offhand remarks that his part was not big enough for him. Then, after a performance where Kean went out of his way to botch the opening night of "Switzerland" by historical novelist Jane Porter in February 1819, for whom Kean had had a personal dislike, Bucke pulled the play out of contempt for Kean's conduct.^[1]. After much cajoling to still perform the play by the theatre staff, Mr. Bucke then later had it republished with a preface concerning the incident, including excerpts from correspondences between the involved parties, which was later challenged in two books, The Assailant Assailed and A Defense of Edmund Kean, Esq. The ending result was loss of face on both sides and the play being performed anyway on 3 April 1819 to a disastrous reception thanks to the controversy already surrounding the play and Kean's previous conduct.^[2]

On 29 November 1820 Kean appeared for the first time in New York as Richard III. The success of his visit to America was unequivocal, although he fell into a vexatious dispute with the press. In 1821, he appeared in Boston with Mary Ann Duff in The Distrest Mother, by Ambrose Philips, an adaptation of Racine's Andromaque. On 4 June 1821 he returned to England.

Kean was the first to restore the tragic ending to Shakespeare's King Lear, which had been replaced on stage since 1681 by Nahum Tate's happy ending adaptation The History of King Lear. Kean had previously acted Tate's Lear, but told his wife that the London audience "have no notion of what I can do till they see me over the dead body of Cordelia."^[3] Kean played the tragic Lear for a few performances. They were not well received, though one critic described his dying scene as "deeply affecting",^[4] and with regret, he reverted to Tate.^[5]

Newspaper notice for meeting of the Boston Debating Society: "Would the public be justified in expelling Kean the tragedian from the stage on account of his private character?" (October 1825)^[6]

Private life[link]

Kean’s lifestyle became a hindrance to his career. In Switzerland, he met Charlotte Cox, the wife of a London city alderman. Kean was sued by Cox for adultery on his return to England. Damages of £800 was awarded against him in the presence of a jury in just 10 minutes. The Times launched a violent attack on him. The adverse decision in the divorce case of Cox v. Kean on 17 January 1825 caused his wife to leave him, and aroused against him such bitter feeling, that he was booed and pelted with fruit when he re-appeared at Drury Lane, as nearly to compel him to retire permanently into private life.

For many years he lived at Keydell House, Horndean.

Second American visit[link]

A second visit to America in 1825 was largely a repetition of the persecution which he had suffered in England. Some cities showed him a spirit of charity; many audiences submitted him to insults and even violence. In Quebec City he was much impressed with the kindness of some Huron Indians who attended his performances, and he was purportedly made an honorary chief of the tribe, receiving the name Alanienouidet.^[7] Kean’s last appearance in New York was on 5 December 1826 in Richard III, the role in which he was first seen in America.

Decline and death[link]

He returned to England and was ultimately received with favour, but by now he was so dependent on the use of stimulants that the gradual deterioration of his gifts was inevitable. Still, his great powers triumphed during the moments of his inspiration over the absolute wreck of his physical faculties. His appearance in Paris was a failure owing to a fit of drunkenness.

His last appearance on the stage was at Covent Garden, on 25 March 1833, when he played Othello to the Iago of his son, Charles Kean, who was also an accomplished actor. At the words “Villain, be sure,” in scene 3 of act iii, he suddenly broke down, and crying in a faltering voice “O God, I am dying. Speak to them, Charles,” fell insensible into his son’s arms. He died at Richmond, Surrey where he had spent his last years as manager of the local theatre, and is commemorated in the Parish Church where there is a floor plaque marking his grave and a wall plaque originally on the outside but moved inside and heavily restored during restoration work in 1904. He is buried in the parish church of All Saints, in the village of Catherington, Hampshire. His last words were alleged to be "dying is easy; comedy is hard."^[8] In Dublin, Gustavus Vaughan Brooke took up the part of William Tell vacated by Kean.

Artistic legacy[link]

It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare’s genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful character was Sir Giles Overreach in Philip Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the effect of his first performance of which was such that the pit rose en masse, and even the actors and actresses themselves were overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His main disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. Coleridge said, “Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”^[9]

If the range of character in which Kean attained supreme excellence was narrow, no one except David Garrick was so successful in so many great roles. Unlike Garrick, Kean had no true talent for comedy, but in the expression of biting and saturnine wit, of grim and ghostly gaiety he was unsurpassed.

Eccentricity[link]

His eccentricities at the height of his fame were numerous. Sometimes he would ride recklessly on his horse, Shylock, throughout the night. He was presented with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his drawing-room.

The prize-fighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend.

Appraisals[link]

In his earlier days, Talma said of him, “He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him off and he will be a perfect tragedian.” Macready, who was much impressed by Kean’s Richard III and met the actor at supper, speaks of his “unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness” and of the “touching grace” of his singing. Kean’s delivery of the three words “I answer—No!” in the part of Sir Edward Mortimer in The Iron Chest, cast Macready into an abyss of despair at rivalling him in this role. So full of dramatic interest is the life of Edmund Kean that it formed the subject for the play "Kean" by Jean-Paul Sartre as well as a play by Alexandre Dumas, père, entitled Kean, ou Désordre et génie, in which the actor Frédérick Lemaître achieved one of his greatest triumphs.

Theatrical works[link]

Several theatrical works have been based on Kean's life:

• Kean, a drama by Alexandre Dumas, père, 1836
• Kean, a comedy by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1953 (produced 1954 with Pierre Brasseur, revived London 2007 starring Antony Sher)^[10]
• Kean, a Broadway musical by Peter Stone, Robert Wright, and George Forrest, 1961
• Kean IV, a tragicomedy by Grigoriy Gorin, 1991

References[link]

• Francis Phippen, Authentic memoirs of Edmund Kean, containing a specimen of his talent at composition (London, 1814)
• B. W. Procter, The Life of E. K. (London, 1835)
• Frederick William Hawkins, The life of Edmund Kean (Tinsley Brothers, London, 1869)
• George Henry Lewes, On Actors and the Art of Acting (Smith Elder, London, 1875)
• Henry Barton Baker Our Old Actors, (R. Bentley & Son, London, 1881)
• Edwin Booth, "Edmund Kean," in Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States from the days of David Garrick to the present time, edited by Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, volume iii (Cassell & Co., New York, 1886)
• Joseph Fitzgerald Molloy, The Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean, Tragedian, 1787-1833 (Downey & Co. Limited, London, 1897)
• Edward Stirling, Old Drury Lane: Fifty Years' Recollections of Author, Actor, and Manager (Chatto and Windus, London, 1887).
• Lynch, Jack (2007). Becoming Shakespeare: The Strange Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard. New York: Walker & Co.
• * Hillebrand, Harold Newcomb: Edmund Kean, New York, Columbia University Press, 1933

External links[link]

Media related to Edmund Kean at Wikimedia Commons

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Richard Henry Dana on Edmund Kean's Acting, report by Carol McCluer of an Aesthetic Realism lecture by Eli Siegel

James Gillray

James Gillray (13 August 1756^[1] or 1757 – 1 June 1815), was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.

Early life[link]

He was born in Chelsea. His father, a native of Lanark, had served as a soldier, losing an arm at the Battle of Fontenoy, and was admitted, first as an inmate, and afterwards as an outdoor pensioner, at Chelsea Hospital. Gillray commenced life by learning letter-engraving, at which he soon became adept. This employment, however, proved irksome to James, so he wandered about for a time with a company of strolling players. After a very checkered experience he returned to London and was admitted as a student in the Royal Academy, supporting himself by engraving, and probably issuing a considerable number of caricatures under fictitious names. His caricatures are almost all in etching, some also with aquatint, and a few using stipple technique. None can correctly be described as engravings, although this term is often loosely used to describe them. Hogarth's works were the delight and study of his early years. Paddy on Horseback, which appeared in 1779, is the first caricature which is certainly his. Two caricatures on Admiral Rodney's naval victory at the Battle of the Saintes, issued in 1782, were among the first of the memorable series of his political sketches.

Adult life[link]

Very Slippy-Weather (1808)

L'Assemblée Nationale (1804) was called "the most talented caricature that has ever appeared", partly due to its "admirable likenesses". The Prince of Wales paid a large sum of money to have it suppressed and its plate destroyed.^[2]

The name of Gillray's publisher and print seller, Miss Hannah Humphrey—whose shop was first at 227 Strand, then in New Bond Street, then in Old Bond Street, and finally in St James's Street—is inextricably associated with that of the caricaturist himself. Gillray lived with Miss (often called Mrs) Humphrey during the entire period of his fame. It is believed that he several times thought of marrying her, and that on one occasion the pair were on their way to the church, when Gillray said: "This is a foolish affair, methinks, Miss Humphrey. We live very comfortably together; we had better let well alone." There is no evidence, however, to support the stories which scandalmongers invented about their relations. One of Gillray's prints, "Twopenny Whist," is a depiction of four individuals playing cards, and the character shown second from the left, an ageing lady with eyeglasses and a bonnet, is widely believed to be an accurate depiction of Miss Humphrey.

Gillray's plates were exposed in Humphrey's shop window, where eager crowds examined them. One of his later prints, Very Slippy-Weather, shows Miss Humphrey's shop in St. James's Street in the background. In the shop window a number of Gillray's previously published prints, such as Tiddy-Doll the Great French Gingerbread Maker, Drawing Out a New Batch of Kings; His Man, Talley Mixing up the Dough, a satire on Napoleon's king-making proclivities, are shown in the shop window. His last work, from a design by Bunbury, is entitled Interior of a Barber's Shop in Assize Time, and is dated 1811. While he was engaged on it he became mad, although he had occasional intervals of sanity, which he employed on his last work. The approach of madness may have been hastened by his intemperate habits. Gillray died on 1 June 1815, and was buried in St James's churchyard, Piccadilly.

The art of caricature[link]

"The reception of the Diplomatique (Macartney) and his suite, at the Court of Pekin". Published in September 1792.

A number of his most trenchant satires are directed against George III, who, after examining some of Gillray's sketches, said "I don't understand these caricatures." Gillray revenged himself for this utterance by his splendid caricature entitled, A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper, which he is doing by means of a candle on a "save-all"; so that the sketch satirises at once the king's pretensions to knowledge of art and his miserly habits.

During the French Revolution, Gillray took a conservative stance; and he issued caricature after caricature ridiculing the French and Napoleon (usually using Jacobin), and glorifying John Bull. A number of these were published in the Anti-Jacobin Review. He is not, however, to be thought of as a keen political adherent of either the Whig or the Tory party; his caricatures satirized members of all sides of the political spectrum.

The times in which Gillray lived were peculiarly favourable to the growth of a great school of caricature. Party warfare was carried on with great vigour and not a little bitterness; and personalities were freely indulged in on both sides. Gillray's incomparable wit and humour, knowledge of life, fertility of resource, keen sense of the ludicrous, and beauty of execution, at once gave him the first place among caricaturists. He is honourably distinguished in the history of caricature by the fact that his sketches are real works of art. The ideas embodied in some of them are sublime and poetically magnificent in their intensity of meaning, while the forthrightness—which some have called coarseness—which others display is characteristic of the general freedom of treatment common in all intellectual departments in the 18th century. The historical value of Gillray's work has been recognized by many discerning students of history. As has been well remarked: "Lord Stanhope has turned Gillray to account as a veracious reporter of speeches, as well as a suggestive illustrator of events."

Monstrous Craws, at a New Coalition Feast (1787)

His contemporary political influence is borne witness to in a letter from Lord Bateman, dated 3 November 1798. "The Opposition," he writes to Gillray, "are as low as we can wish them. You have been of infinite service in lowering them, and making them ridiculous." Gillray's extraordinary industry may be inferred from the fact that nearly 1000 caricatures have been attributed to him; while some consider him the author of as many as 1600 or 1700. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Gillray is as invaluable to the student of English manners as to the political student, attacking the social follies of the time with scathing satire; and nothing escapes his notice, not even a trifling change of fashion in dress. The great tact Gillray displays in hitting on the ludicrous side of any subject is only equalled by the exquisite finish of his sketches—the finest of which reach an epic grandeur and Miltonic sublimity of conception."

Gillray's caricatures are generally divided into two classes, the political series and the social, though it is important not to attribute to the term "series" any concept of continuity or completeness. The political caricatures comprise an important and invaluable component of the history extant of the latter part of the reign of George III. They were circulated not only in Britain but also throughout Europe, and exerted a powerful influence both in Britain and abroad. In the political prints, George III, George's wife Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent, then King George IV), Fox, Pitt the Younger, Burke and Napoleon Bonaparte are the most prominent figures. In 1788 appeared two fine caricatures by Gillray. Blood on Thunder fording the Red Sea represents Lord Thurlow carrying Warren Hastings through a sea of gore: Hastings looks very comfortable, and is carrying two large bags of money. Market-Day pictures the ministerialists of the time as cattle for sale.

A Voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion (1792)

Temperance Enjoying a Frugal Meal (1792)

The world being carved up into spheres of influence between Pitt and Napoleon - "probably the most famous political cartoon of all time -it has been stolen over and over and over again by cartoonists ever since." ^[3]

The Cow-Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation! (1802)

Doublûres of Characters;—or—striking Resemblances in Phisiognomy.—"If you would know Mens Hearts, look in their Faces." (1798)

The loss of the faro bank; or - the rook's pigeon'd (1797)

The whore's last shift (1779)

The Gout (1799)

Among Gillray's best satires on George III are: Farmer George and his Wife, two companion plates, in one of which the king is toasting muffins for breakfast, and in the other the queen is frying sprats; The Anti-Saccharites, where the royal pair propose to dispense with sugar, to the great horror of the family; A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper; the paired plates A Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion and Temperance enjoying a Frugal Meal, satirising the excesses of the Prince Regent (later George IV of the United Kingdom) and the miserliness of his father, George III of the United Kingdom respectively; Royal Affability; A Lesson in Apple Dumplings; and The Pigs Possessed.

Other political caricatures include: Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis, a picture in which Pitt, so often Gillray's butt, figures in a favourable light; The Bridal Night; The Apotheosis of Hoche, which concentrates the excesses of the French Revolution in one view; The Nursery with Britannia reposing in Peace; The First Kiss these Ten Years (1803), another satire on the peace, which is said to have greatly amused Napoleon; The Hand-Writing upon the Wall; The Confederated Coalition, a swipe at the coalition which superseded the Addington ministry; Uncorking Old Sherry; The Plumb-Pudding in Danger (probably the best known political print ever published); Making Decent; Comforts of a Bed of Roses; View of the Hustings in Covent Garden; Phaethon Alarmed; and Pandora opening her Box.

Fashionable Contrasts;—or—The Duchess's little Shoe yeilding [sic] to the Magnitude of the Duke's Foot (1792)

As well as being blatant in his observations, Gillray could be incredibly subtle, and puncture vanity with a remarkably deft approach. The outstanding example of this is his print Fashionable Contrasts;—or—The Duchess's little Shoe yeilding [sic] to the Magnitude of the Duke's Foot. This was a devastating image aimed at the ridiculous sycophancy directed by the press towards Frederica Charlotte Ulrica, Duchess of York, and the supposed daintiness of her feet. The print showed only the feet and ankles of the Duke and Duchess of York, in an obviously copulatory position, with the Duke's feet enlarged and the Duchess's feet drawn very small. This print silenced forever the sycophancy of the press regarding the union of the Duke and Duchess.

The miscellaneous series of caricatures, although they have scarcely the historical importance of the political series, are more readily intelligible, and are even more amusing. Among the finest are: Shakespeare Sacrificed; Flemish Characters (two plates); Two-Penny Whist (which features an image of Hannah Humphrey); Oh that this too solid flesh would melt; Sandwich-Carrots; The Gout; Comfort to the Corns; Begone Dull Care; The Cow-Pock, which gives humorous expression to the popular dread of vaccination; Dilletanti Theatricals; and Harmony before Matrimony and Matrimonial Harmonics—two exceedingly good sketches in violent contrast to each other.

Famous editions[link]

A selection of Gillray's works appeared in James Gillray The Caricatures printed between 1818 and the mid 1820s published by John Miller, Bridge Street and W. Blackwood, Edinburgh. Nine parts were released, the next edition was Thomas McLean's, which was published with a key, in 1830. A somewhat bitter attack, not only on Gillray's character, but even on his genius, appeared in the Athenaeum for 1 October 1831, which was successfully refuted by John Landseer in the Athenaeum a fortnight later.

In 1851 Henry George Bohn put out an edition, from the original plates in a handsome elephant folio, the coarser sketches—commonly known as the "Suppressed Plates"—being published in a separate volume. For this edition Thomas Wright and RH Evans wrote a valuable commentary, which is a good history of the times embraced by the caricatures. Unfortunately, many copies of the Bohn Edition are broken up into individual sheets and passed off as originals to unsuspecting buyers (see Collecting below). Although the two volumes of the Bohn Edition are often represented as being a complete collection of Gillray's works, this is not the case: for example, Doublûres of Characters is not included in either volume. This is most likely because this print was not published by Hannah Humphrey, but by John Wright for the Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine.

The next edition, entitled The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist: with the Story of his Life and Times (Chatto & Windus, 1874), was the work of Thomas Wright, and, by its popular exposition and narrative, introduced Gillray to a very large circle formerly ignorant of him. This edition, which is complete in one volume, contains two portraits of Gillray, and upwards of 400 illustrations. Mr JJ Cartwright, in a letter to the Academy (28 Feb. 1874), drew attention to the existence of a manuscript volume, in the British Museum, containing letters to and from Gillray, and other illustrative documents. The extracts he gave were used in a valuable article in the Quarterly Review for April 1874. See also the Academy for 21 February and 16 May 1874.

Collecting[link]

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Light expelling Darkness,—Evaporation of Stygian Exhalations,—or—The Sun of the Constitution, rising superior to the Clouds of Opposition (1795)

In recent years Gillray's work has become very collectible. Prices had been climbing steadily since the 1970s, but the auction of the Draper Hill Collection at Phillips auctioneers in London in 2001 pushed prices to new highs: several key prints, including Fashionable Contrasts, fetching more than US$10,000. Since 2002, annual auctions of Caricatures at Bonhams in London, each of which included large selections of Gillray prints, have continued this trend. Escalating prices have also meant that good examples of major works by Gillray can be very hard to come by at any price. Unfortunately for the beginning collector this means that starting a collection now is far more difficult than thirty years ago, when a very good copy of Light expelling Darkness could be had for as little as US$250. A good impression of this print sold in 2006 for over US$9,000, while Fashionable Contrasts also sold in the same year for over US$20,000.

This dramatic increase in prices has also led to unscrupulous sellers attempting to pass off prints from the Bohn Edition as originals, and it can be difficult for those unfamiliar with these practices to tell the difference between a restrike (commonly called "a Bohn") and an original. The key indicators of a print coming from the Bohn Edition are (i) the presence of a number in the top, right-hand corner of the print (the number is most commonly in the image itself, but may be outside in the margin); (ii) the fact that the Bohn edition was issued without colouring; and (iii) the fact that the strikes for the main published volumes of the Bohn Edition were printed on both sides of the paper (the Bohn Edition of the so-called "Suppressed Plates" was, like the originals, printed on one side of the paper only). However, the fact that a print is single-sided does not mean that it is not a Bohn restrike: there are in existence many Bohns (for example, Light expelling Darkness) that bear a number, but which are printed on one side of the paper only. These single-sided numbered strikes are almost always printed on much higher quality paper than was used for the bound volumes, and the quality of the printing is usually much superior too, with more care having been taken to ensure a crisp impression. These impressions are believed to have been struck by Henry Bohn with a view to colouring them, and then selling them as high-quality single prints, in much the same way as the prints published in Gillray's lifetime. There are many example of such single-sided restrikes, both coloured and uncoloured. Since prices for Bohns are usually between one-tenth and one-twentieth of those for originals, unscrupulous sellers will go to great lengths to disguise the fact that a print is a Bohn. Some common methods include: (i) tortuously worded descriptions, which attempt to avoid disclosure of the fact the print is a restrike (although some sellers will just plain lie); (ii) if the number is outside the image, trimming the print to the very edges of the image; (iii) if the number is inside the image, carefully abrading the surface to obliterate the number; (iv) cutting strips of the image to remove the number; (v) laying the print to paper or framing it such that it is difficult to determine whether there is printing on the reverse; and (vi) adding colour.

Also recently the prices of the John Miller editions are rapidly increasing in value because they are affordable for collectors and is seen as a solid investment. They are seen as good alternative to the desirable originals of Mrs. Humphrey's print shop.

Later life and death[link]

Gillray's eyesight began to fail in 1806. He began wearing spectacles but they were unsatisfactory. Unable to work to his previous high standards, James Gillray became depressed and started drinking heavily. He produced his last print in September 1809. As a result of his heavy drinking Gillray suffered from gout throughout his later life.

In July 1811 Gillray attempted to kill himself by throwing himself out of an attic window above Humphrey's shop in St James's Street. Gillray lapsed into insanity and was looked after by Hannah Humphrey until his death on 1 June 1815.

James Gillray was buried in the courtyard of St James's Church, in Piccadilly, London.

Influence[link]

Gillray is still revered as one of the most influential political caricaturists of all time, and among the leading cartoonists on the political stage in the United Kingdom today, both Steve Bell and Martin Rowson acknowledge him as probably the most influential of all their predecessors in that particular arena.

There is a good account of Gillray in Wright's History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art (1865).

In April 2012 the hotel chain Marriott International Inc. will open a steak restaurant in London's County Hall themed on Gillray's artwork called Gillray's Steakhouse & Bar^[4]. The restaurant will feature key pieces of Gillray's artwork in the restaurant and in the menus ^[5] .

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Gillray

Wikisource has original works written by or about: James Gillray

• James Gillray Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
• GreatCaricatures.com: James Gillray Galleries
• James Gillray at The National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom).
• James Gillray at The Tate Britain.
• James Gillray at The New York Public Library.
• James Gillray prints at the Lewis Walpole Library of Yale University.
• University of Nottingham Visual Resources - James Gillray cartoons
• Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray by Thomas Wright, R. H. Evans
• Princeton University. Gillray Collection

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.