Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has a 12-volume third edition (1797) of "Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, A dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature"

Added at 07:42 on 10 December 2024

The Leighton Library has a 12-volume third edition (1797) of "Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, A dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature," the first edition of which was published #OnThisDay 10 December 1768 as three volumes in Edinburgh, compiled by one editor - William Smellie. It became the world's longest running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. The Leighton Library third edition was published by the same Edinburgh publishers as the first edition, Colin Macfarquhar (a bookseller and printer) and Andrew Bell (an engraver), both of Edinburgh. The Britannica of this period was primarily a Scottish enterprise, and it is one of the most enduring legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment. The third edition was published from 1788 to 1797 in 300 weekly numbers (1 shilling apiece); these numbers were collected and sold unbound in 30 parts (10 shilling, sixpence each), and finally in 1797 they were bound in 18 volumes with 14,579 pages and 542 plates, and given title pages dated 1797 for all volumes. Now with multiple scholarly contributors, the third edition established the foundation of the Britannica as an important and definitive reference work for much of the next century. This edition was also enormously profitable and sold 10,000 copies. The 3rd edition began the tradition (subsequently continued) of dedicating the Britannica to the reigning British monarch, then King George III

< Leighton Library has 1644 edition of "The historie of the reformation of The Church of Scotland" by John Knox Leighton Library has first edition of 1788 of 2 volumes of Adam Dickson's "The Husbandry of the Ancients" >