Edition Summary
| Edition/supplement | Publication years | Size | Sales | Chief editor(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 1768–1771 | 3 volumes, 2,670 pages, 160 plates | 2,000 | William Smellie | Largely the work of one editor, Smellie; 2,000 sets sold; 30 articles longer than three pages |
| 2nd | 1777–1784 | 10 volumes, 8,595 pages, 340 plates | 1,500 | James Tytler | Largely the work of one editor, Tytler; 150 long articles; pagination errors; all maps under "Geography" article; 1,500 sets sold |
| 3rd | 1788–1797 | 18 volumes, 14,579 pages, 542 plates | 10,000 | Colin Macfarquhar and George Gleig | £42,000 profit on 10,000 copies sold; first dedication to monarch; pirated by Moore in Dublin and Dobson in Philadelphia |
| supplement to 3rd | 1801 | 2 volumes, 1,624 pages, 50 plates | George Gleig | Copyright owned by Thomas Bonar | |
| 4th | 1801–1809 | 20 volumes, 16,033 pages, 581 plates | 4,000 | James Millar | Authors first allowed to retain copyright; 4,000 sets sold |
| 5th | 1817 | 20 volumes, 16,017 pages, 582 plates | James Millar | Reprint of the 4th edition. Financial losses by Millar and Andrew Bell's heirs; EB rights sold to Archibald Constable | |
| supplement to 5th | 1816–1824 | 6 volumes, 4,933 pages, 125 plates1 | Macvey Napier | Famous contributors recruited, such as Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Walter Scott, Malthus | |
| 6th | 1820–1823 | 20 volumes | Charles Maclaren | Reprint of the 4th and 5th editions with modern font. Constable went bankrupt on 19 January 1826; EB rights eventually secured by Adam Black | |
| 7th | 1830–1842 | 21 volumes, 17,101 pages, 506 plates, 187-page index | 5,000 | Macvey Napier, assisted by James Browne, LLD | Widening network of famous contributors, such as Sir David Brewster, Thomas de Quincey, Antonio Panizzi; 5,000 sets sold |
| 8th | 1853–1860 | 21 volumes, 17,957 pages, 402 plates; separate 239-page index, published 18612 | 8,000 | Thomas Stewart Traill | Many long articles were copied from the 7th edition; 344 contributors including William Thomson; authorized American sets printed by Little, Brown in Boston; 8,000 sets sold altogether |
| 9th | 1875–1889 | 24 volumes, plus one index volume | 40,000, (500,000 pirated sets) | Thomas Spencer Baynes (1875–80); then W. Robertson Smith | Some carry-over from 8th edition, but mostly a new work; high point of scholarship; 40,000 authorized sets made in USA by Little, Brown in Boston and Schribners' Sons in NY, but pirated widely (500,000 sets) in the U.S.3 |
| 10th, supplement to 9th |
1902–1903 | 11 volumes, plus the 24 volumes of the 9th4 | Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace and Hugh Chisholm in London; Arthur T. Hadley & Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City | American partnership bought EB rights on 9 May 1901; high-pressure sales methods | |
| 11th | 1910–1911 | 28 volumes, plus one index volume | 1,000,000 | Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City | Another high point of scholarship and writing; more articles than the 9th, but shorter and simpler; financial difficulties for owner, Horace Everett Hooper; EB rights sold to Sears Roebuck in 1920 |
| 12th, supplement to 11th |
1921–1922 | 3 volumes, plus the 28 volumes of the 11th5 | Hugh Chisholm in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City | Summarised state of the world before, during, and after World War I | |
| 13th, supplement to 11th |
1926 | 3 volumes, plus the 28 volumes of the 11th6 | James Louis Garvin in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City | Replaced 12th edition volumes; improved perspective of the events of 1910–1926 | |
| 14th | 1929–1933 | 24 volumes 7 | James Louis Garvin in London, Franklin Henry Hooper in New York City | Publication just before Great Depression was financially catastrophic | |
| revised 14th | 1933–1973 | 24 volumes 7 | Franklin Henry Hooper until 1938; then Walter Yust, Harry Ashmore, Warren E. Preece, William Haley | Began continuous revision in 1936: every article revised at least twice every decade | |
| 15th | 1974–1984 | 30 volumes 8 | Warren E. Preece, then Philip W. Goetz | Introduced three-part structure; division of articles into Micropædia and Macropædia; Propædia Outline of Knowledge; separate index eliminated | |
| 1985–2010 | 32 volumes 9 | Philip W. Goetz, then Robert McHenry, currently Dale Hoiberg | Restored two-volume index; merged Micropædia and Macropædia articles; slightly longer overall; new versions were issued every few years. Last printed edition. |
| Edition notes
1Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. With preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences. 2 The 7th to 14th editions included a separate index volume. 3 The 9th edition featured articles by notables of the day, such as James Maxwell on electricity and magnetism, and William Thomson (who became Lord Kelvin) on heat. 4 The 10th edition included a maps volume and a cumulative index volume for the 9th and 10th edition volumes: the new volumes, constituting, in combination with the existing volumes of the 9th ed., the 10th ed. ... and also supplying a new, distinctive, and independent library of reference dealing with recent events and developments 5 Vols. 30–32 ... the New volumes constituting, in combination with the twenty-nine volumes of the eleventh edition, the twelfth edition 6 This supplement replaced the previous supplement: The three new supplementary volumes constituting, with the volumes of the latest standard edition, the thirteenth edition. 7 This edition was the first to be kept up to date by continual (usually annual) revision. 8 The 15th edition (introduced as "Britannica 3") was published in three parts: a 10-volume Micropædia (which contained short articles and served as an index), a 19-volume Macropædia, plus the Propædia (see text). It was reorganised in 1985 to have 12 and 17 volumes in the Micro- and Macropædia. 9 In 1985, the system was modified by adding a separate two-volume index; the Macropædia articles were further consolidated into fewer, larger ones (for example, the previously separate articles about the 50 U.S. states were all included into the "United States of America" article), with some medium-length articles moved to the Micropædia. The first CD-ROM edition was issued in 1994. At that time also an online version was offered for paid subscription. In 1999 this was offered for free, and no revised print versions appeared. The experiment was ended in 2001 and a new printed set was issued in 2001. |
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