What a History of the Encyclopaedia could Show

Abstract

One of the most striking phenomena in the literature of bibliography is the absence of a comprehensive critical history of the encyclopaedia. Helpful summaries with supporting references can be found, as might be expected, in the 9th, 11th and 14th editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in Enciclopedia Italiana. Certain encyclopedic works have been treated perceptively in studies focussed on other subjects, such as Thorndike's classic History of Magic and Experimental Science. And for a few particular titles, notably the Encyclopédic of eighteenth‐century France, there is a rather substantial body of published discussion. Occasionally the monographic contributions reach the heights of critical acumen displayed in Hans Aarsleff's essay, “The Early History of the Oxford English Dictionary,” in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library September, 1962 (66: 417–439). But that is not characteristic.