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 This edition of the encyclopedia is now in the public domain, but the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic.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.
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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. 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.
The initials of the encyclopedia's contributors appear at the end of selected articles (at the end of a section in the case of some 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 comprised as follows:
| Subject | Content |
|---|---|
| Geography | 29% |
| Pure and applied science | 17% |
| History | 17% |
| Literature | 11% |
| Fine art | 9% |
| Social science | 7% |
| Psychology | 1.7% |
| Philosophy | 0.8% |
Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago during 1920, completing the Britannica's transition to becoming a substantially American publication.
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]
During 1917, using his 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]
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:
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.
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.
| Internet Archive – Text Archives Individual Volumes |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | DjVu | From | To |
| Volume 1 | DjVu 1 | A | Androphagi |
| Volume 2 | DjVu 2 | Andros, Sir Edmund | Austria |
| Volume 3 | DjVu 3 | Austria, Lower | Bisectrix |
| Volume 4 | DjVu 4 | Bisharin | Calgary |
| Volume 5 | DjVu 5 | Calhoun, John Caldwell | Chatelaine |
| Volume 6 | DjVu 6 | Châtelet | Constantine |
| Volume 7 | DjVu 7 | Constantine Pavlovich | Demidov |
| Volume 8 | DjVu 8 | Demijohn | Edward the Black Prince |
| Volume 9 | DjVu 9 | Edwardes, Sir Herbert Benjamin | Evangelical Association |
| Volume 10 | DjVu 10 | Evangelical Church Conference | Francis Joseph I |
| Volume 11 | DjVu 11 | Franciscans | Gibson, William Hamilton |
| Volume 12 | DjVu 12 | Gichtel, Johann Georg | Harmonium |
| Volume 13 | DjVu 13 | Harmony | Hurstmonceaux |
| Volume 14 | DjVu 14 | Husband | Italic |
| Volume 15 | DjVu 15 | Italy | Kyshtym |
| Volume 16 | DjVu 16 | L | Lord Advocate |
| Volume 17 | DjVu 17 | Lord Chamberlain | Mecklenburg |
| Volume 18 | DjVu 18 | Medal | Mumps |
| Volume 19 | DjVu 19 | Mun, Adrien Albert Marie de | Oddfellows, Order of |
| Volume 20 | DjVu 20 | Ode | Payment of members |
| Volume 21 | DjVu 21 | Payn, James | Polka |
| Volume 22 | DjVu 22 | Poll | Reeves, John Sims |
| Volume 23 | DjVu 23 | Refectory | Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin |
| Volume 24 | DjVu 24 | Sainte-Claire Deville, Étienne Henri | Shuttle |
| Volume 25 | DjVu 25 | Shuválov, Peter Andreivich | Subliminal self |
| Volume 26 | DjVu 26 | Submarine mines | Tom-Tom |
| Volume 27 | DjVu 27 | Tonalite | Vesuvius |
| Volume 28 | DjVu 28 | Vetch | Zymotic diseases |
| Volume 29 | DjVu 29 | Index | List of contributors |
| Volume 1 of 1922 supp | Abbe | English History | |
| Volume 2 of 1922 supp | English History | Oyama, Iwao | |
| Volume 3 of 1922 supp | Pacific Ocean Islands | Zuloaga | |
| Reader's Guide - 1913 | |||
| Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia As of 24 October 2011[update] |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Section | From | To | |
| Volume 1: | A | – | Androphagi |
| Volume 2.1: | Andros, Sir Edmund | – | Anise |
| Volume 2.2: | Anjar | – | Apollo |
| Volume 2.3: | Apollodorus | – | Aral |
| Volume 2.4: | Aram, Eugene | – | Arcueil |
| Volume 2.5: | Arculf | – | Armour, Philip |
| Volume 2.6: | Armour Plates | – | Arundel, Earls of |
| Volume 2.7: | Arundel, Thomas | – | Athens |
| Volume 2.8: | Atherstone | – | Austria |
| Volume 3.1: | Austria, Lower | – | Bacon |
| Volume 3.2: | Baconthorpe | – | Bankruptcy |
| Volume 3.3: | Banks | – | Bassoon |
| Volume 3.4: | Basso-relievo | – | Bedfordshire |
| Volume 3.5: | Bedlam | – | Benson, George |
| Volume 3.6: | Bent, James | – | Bibirine |
| Volume 3.7: | Bible | – | Bisectrix |
| Volume 4.1: | Bisharin | – | Bohea |
| Volume 4.2: | Bohemia | – | Borgia, Francis |
| Volume 4.3: | Borgia, Lucrezia | – | Bradford, John |
| Volume 4.4: | Bradford, William | – | Brequigny, Louis |
| Volume 4.5: | Bréquigny | – | Bulgaria |
| Volume 4.6: | Bulgaria | – | Calgary |
| Volume 5.1: | Calhoun | – | Camoens |
| Volume 5.2: | Camorra | – | Cape Colony |
| Volume 5.3: | Capefigue | – | Carneades |
| Volume 5.4: | Carnegie, Andrew | – | Casus Belli |
| Volume 5.5: | Cat | – | Celt |
| Volume 5.6: | Celtes, Konrad | – | Ceramics |
| Volume 5.7: | Cerargyrite | – | Charing Cross |
| Volume 5.8: | Chariot | – | Chatelaine |
| Volume 6.1: | Châtelet | – | Chicago |
| Volume 6.2: | Chicago, University of | – | Chiton |
| Volume 6.3: | Chitral | – | Cincinnati |
| Volume 6.4: | Cincinnatus | – | Cleruchy |
| Volume 6.5: | Clervaux | – | Cockade |
| Volume 6.6: | Cockaigne | – | Columbus, Christopher |
| Volume 6.7: | Columbus | – | Condottiere |
| Volume 6.8: | Conduction, Electric | – | |
| Volume 7.1: | Prependix | – | |
| Volume 7.2: | Constantine Pavlovich | – | Convention |
| Volume 7.3: | Convention | – | Copyright |
| Volume 7.4: | Coquelin | – | Costume |
| Volume 7.5: | Cosway | – | Coucy |
| Volume 7.6: | Coucy-le-Château | – | Crocodile |
| Volume 8.2: | Demijohn | – | Destructor |
| Volume 8.3: | Destructors | – | Diameter |
| Volume 8.4: | Diameter | – | Dinarchus |
| Volume 8.5: | Dinard | – | Dodsworth |
| Volume 8.6: | Dodwell | – | Drama |
| Volume 8.7: | Drama | – | Dublin |
| Volume 8.8: | Dubner | – | Dyeing |
| Volume 8.9: | Dyer | – | Echidna |
| Volume 8.10: | Echinoderma | – | Edward |
| Volume 9.1: | Edwardes | – | Ehrenbreitstein |
| Volume 9.2: | Ehud | – | Electroscope |
| Volume 9.3: | Electrostatics | – | Engis |
| Volume 9.4: | England | – | English Finance |
| Volume 9.5: | English History | – | |
| Volume 9.6: | English Language | – | Epsom Salts |
| Volume 9.7: | Equation | – | Ethics |
| Volume 9.8: | Ethiopia | – | Evangelical Association |
| Volume 10.1: | Evangelical Church Conference | – | Fairbairn, Sir William |
| Volume 10.2: | Fairbanks, Erastus | – | Fens |
| Volume 10.3: | Fenton, Edward | – | Finistère |
| Volume 10.4: | Finland | – | Fleury, Andre |
| Volume 10.5: | Fleury, Claude | – | Foraker |
| Volume 10.6: | Foraminifera | – | Fox, Edward |
| Volume 10.7: | Fox, George | – | France |
| Volume 10.8: | France | – | Francis Joseph I. |
| Volume 11.1: | Franciscians | – | French Language |
| Volume 11.2: | French Literature | – | Frost, William |
| Volume 11.3: | Frost | – | Fyzabad |
| Volume 11.4: | G | – | Gaskell, Elizabeth |
| Volume 11.5: | Gassendi, Pierre | – | Geocentric |
| Volume 11.6: | Geodesy | – | Geometry |
| Volume 11.7: | Geoponici | – | Germany |
| Volume 11.8: | Germany | – | Gibson, William |