11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica

Regular readers of the Terminus Times, here at the Encyclopedia Foundation website, are well familiar with the phrase “the 13th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica”. If there are some typos, it might say 12th edition. Or sometimes you see it say the 11th edition. What is the deal?

The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is the most known and revered set they ever came out with. They did so in 1911, and it is generally regarded as one of the finest encyclopedia sets ever done. It is the closest thing to the totality of late 19th, early 20th century knowledge you will ever see.

The 12th edition is simply the exact same 29 volume 11th edition, plus three supplemental volumes. The 13th edition is still the exact same 11th edition, but the three supplemental volumes are updated.

After that, later editions involved changes in the main series, so that the 11th edition was no more.

What the Encyclopedia Foundation intends on preserving is the 13th edition. The 29 volume 11th edition, plus the three latest supplemental volumes published in the nineteen twenties.

Frankly, we pondered whether to do that. It can be said that it is outdated. That there are actual factual errors in it. That there is even racial bias.
But even if we chose a “modern” Encyclopedia Britannica, we realized that it would be out of date soon enough. We are preserving it for ten thousand years, so even the 100th edition of the future Encyclopedia Britannica is going to be out of date and have errors!

So if we must pick one, since any will have errors, we chose the one that has the greatest historical and cultural and literary significance. And that is the 11th.
You see, 1911 was probably the last year in which it was even possible to think about having all the knowledge of mankind in one set. It was also the end of an era, that era being “The Age of Enlightenment”. Till then, mankind was generally imagining that things would only get better, that we had turned a corner, that our industrial and technological progress would end wars, end poverty and usher in a golden age.

This may well still happen, but mankind is not notably expecting that so much, not after the “century of wars” we had.

Also, from a pragmatic point of view, it is important to have a “blueprint” of knowledge for getting up to an early 20th century standard of technology and science. You see, from that the rest could be discovered, the rest could be rebuilt.
That level of technology is still simple enough to explain, past that, it becomes too complex. One can see how a steam engine works, even if they are not very familiar with technology. One cannot see how an electronic computer works.
The 13th Edition is also in the common domain. It is not copyright protected, and it is already on line. This makes our task much easier.

To all those who share the dream of preserving the knowledge of mankind, we recommend that you buy a copy. You can find them on ebay, very pricey but worth it. Your set will last a few hundred years with care. If you are more ambitious, contact us and we will help share with you how to make a more durable copy.

Another article did an out of the blue estimate of…well, quite high. But we bet we can figure out ways of making it much cheaper!