Encyclopædia Britannica

A product of the Scottish enlightenment[?], it was originally published in Edinburgh by Adam and Charles Black beginning in the 18th century. The trademark and publication rights were sold after the 11th edition to an American company, which is the current publisher. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. (properly spelt with æ, the ae-ligature) now owns a trademark on the word "Britannica". The company is based in Chicago.

As of 2003, the Encyclopædia Britannica contains 65,000 articles with 44 million words. It is published in paper form (32 volumes, list price $1400), online (where brief summaries of articles can be viewed for free, and the full text is available for $10 per month or $60 per year for individual subscribers), and on CD-ROM ($50).

Edition history

vol. = volume, sup. = supplement

(1)  9th ed. featured articles by notables of the day, such as James Maxwell on Electricity and Magnetism, and William Thomson (who became Lord Kelvin) on Heat.
(2) 10th ed. added a maps volume and an index volume
(3) 11th ed. Considered the classic edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica; available in the public domain (see 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica).

External links

• Encyclopaedia Britannica - official website (http://www.britannica.com/)
• The Lies And Fallacies Of The Encyclopedia Britannica. How Powerful And Shameless Clerical Forces Castrated A Famous Work Of Reference (http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/lies_of_britannica) by Joseph McCabe[?], c. 1947. An anti-religious tract that claims to show systematic bias in the Britannica of the time.
• Making fun of Britannica, a list of mistakes in the Britannica and how they have been corrected in Wikipedia