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19th century British encyclopædia

Rees's Cyclopædia, in full The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature was an important 19th century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar who had edited previous editions of Chambers's Cyclopædia.

When Rees was planning his Cyclopædia, Europe was in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and during serialised publication (1802–1820) the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812 occurred. Britain absorbed into its empire a number of the former French and Dutch colonies around the world; Romanticism came to the fore; evangelical Christianity flourished with the efforts of William Wilberforce; and factory manufacture burgeoned. With this background, philosophical radicalism was suspect in Britain, and aspects of the Cyclopædia were thought to be distinctly subversive and attracted the hostility of the Loyalist press. Contributors Jeremiah Joyce and Charles Sylvester had attracted the attention of the government and were tried for their views. The editor and authors went to great pains to emphasise their Englishness, to the extent of anglicising many French words: the French Kings Louis appear under the heading "Lewis". Scientific theorising about the atomic system, geological succession, and earth origins; natural history (botany, entomology, ornithology and zoology); and developments in technology, particularly in textiles manufacture, are all reflected in the Cyclopædia. Other topics include exploration and foreign travel which provide insights into how the world was viewed at that time. Agriculture and rural life also feature greatly.

The Cyclopædia appeared serially between January 1802 and August 1820, and ran to 39 volumes of text and 6 volumes of plates including an atlas. It contains around 39 million words, and around 500 of the articles are of monograph length. The sheets were produced weekly, and issued as half volume sets several times a year. The dates of these can be seen on table 4.1 below. Only one set of the work in half volumes (which also has some of the paper wrappers) is known to survive, in the library of the Natural History Museum, London.

The plates were published in 6 volumes: four covering general articles, one on natural history, and one atlas. They were issued as blocks and so do not appear to have been issued with the texts in the half volumes.

The Rees Project was instigated by June Zimmerman Fullmer (1920–2000), a professor at Ohio State University, an authority on Humphry Davy and the chemistry of the early 19th century. Her work drew her to Rees and she indexed it. After tapping the invisible college of scholars who knew of Rees, she convened a summer 1986 meeting in London, following which she wrote a proposal to the American Foundation for the Humanities for funding to the project, setting out the object of producing a printed concordance to the contents of the Cyclopædia. This was intended to make Rees much more widely accessible to the modern reader. Funding was not forthcoming, and the matter lapsed.

Rees's Cyclopædia was printed by Andrew Strahan, the King's Printer. It was entirely hand set (there being no mechanical means of composition at this date) and printed. At the commencement of the work Strahan had nine wooden presses and over 20,000 kg of type. By 1809 this had risen to fifteen wooden presses and of type. Since the Cyclopædia was produced serially, with a few sheets being printed each week, only a small part of Strahan's men and equipment would have ever been used on it at any one time. The work was printed on demy paper and folded to quarto format, with an uncropped size of A limited number were advertised in the prospectus as being produced on royal paper, which when folded gave a format of The paper is wove, with no chain lines. One watermark in the paper has been noted, with the legend W BALSTON, 1811. The supplier has not been identified, but it may be significant that a J. Dickinson was a member of the publishing syndicate. The text matter was set in two columns measuring , with 67 lines per column. Ten lines of text measures deep. According to McKerrow's formula this size of typeface was Long Primer. The typefounder is unknown, but the article on "Printing" in Volume 28 had, bound with the text, specimens of type cast by Fry and Steele of London and Alexander Wilson of Glasgow. Greek and Hebrew faces were sometimes used and occasionally special chemical, pharmaceutical, and other symbols appear. The work followed the common practice of the time of conflating the entries for I and J and U and V into single lists. At first a half volume cost 18 shillings, and a large paper version with proof copies of the plates cost £1 16 shillings (according to the prospectuses). By 1820 the parts sold for £1 and £1 16 respectively. It is not clear if these prices were for the parts in wrappers. At the end of the project the work sold for £85 in the quarto edition and was reputed to have cost Longmans nearly £300,000. Most sets of Rees today are bound in calf, with two parts to the volume, but the quality of the leather used has meant that in many cases the hinges have rotted and the covers loosened, necessitating rebinding. The publication of Rees followed the common system of a number of booksellers banding together to share the cost and eventual profit: the conger (syndicate). The syndicate comprised Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, Paternoster Row; F. C. and J. Rivington, publisher to the SPCK (publishers of the British Critic); A. Strahan, King's Printer; and 24 smaller concerns. The full list is on the work's title page. No records of the publication survive, since the papers of Longmans were destroyed when their premises in Paternoster Row, London, were burnt out in the Blitz on the night of 29–30 December 1940.

VOLUME PART DATE OF PUBLICATION LAST ARTICLE 1 1 1 January 1802 AGOGE 2 14 May 1802 AMARANTHOIDES 2 3 18 October 1802 first part of ANTIMONY 4 7 April 1803 ARTERIOTOMY 3 5 22 September 1803 first part of BABEL MANDEB 6 17 March 1804 BATTERSEA 4 7 17 August 1804 BIÖRNSTAHL 8 13 April 1805 BOOK BINDING 5 9 1 June 1805 Pt. BRUNIA 10 26 December 1805 CALVART 6 11 18 February 1806 first part of CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 12 17 June 1806 CASTRA 7 13 1 October 1806 first part of CHALK 14 9 February 1807 CHRONOLOGY 8 15 18 May 1807 first part of CLAVARIA 16 10 August 1807 COLLISEUM 9 17 27 November 1807 first part of CONGREGATION 18 8 March 1808 CORNE 10 19 2 May 1808 first part of CROISADE 20 2 July 1808 CZYRCASSY 11 21 23 September 1808 first part of DELUGE 22 3 December 1808 DISSIMILITUDE 12 23 14 February 1809 first part of DYNAMICS 24 22 May 1809 ELOANX 13 25 18 August 1809 first part of EQUATION 26 25 November 1809 EXTREMUM 14 27 3 February 1810 FIBRO CARTILAGE 28 13 April 1810 FOOD 15 29 27 June 1810 first part of FROBERGER 30 8 October 1810 GENERATION 16 31 29 November 1810 GNEISS 32 25 January 1811 GRETNA GREEN 17 33 8 March 1811 HATFIELD REGIS 34 22 April 1811 HIBE 18 35 23 June 1811 HUYSUM 36 20 August 1811 INCREMENT 19 37 14 September 1811 first part of JOSEPHUS 38 16 December 1811 KILMES 20 39 27 January 1812 first part of LAUREMBERG 40 19 March 1812 LIGHT HORSE 21 41 12 May 1812 first part of LONGITUDE 42 27 July 1812 first part of MACHINERY + A. of PLATES 22 43 27 August 1812 first part of MANGANESE 44 4 November 1812 MATTHESON 23 45 11 December 1812 METALS 46 9 February 1813MONSOON 24 47 30 March 1813 first part of MUSCLE 48 26 April 1813 NEWTON 25 49 15 July 1813 first part of OLEINÆ 50 15 September 1813 OZUNICZE + B. of PLATES 26 51 27 November 1813 first part of PASSIFLORA 52 18 January 1814 PERTURBATION 27 53 22 March 1814 first part of PICUS 54 7 May 1814 POETICS 28 55 14 July 1814 first part of PREACHING 56 16 September 1814 PUNJGOOR 29 57 14 December 1814 first part of RAMISTS + C. of PLATES 58 26 January 1815 REPTON 30 59 21 March 1815 first part of ROCK 60 1 June 1815 RZEMIEN31 61 11 July 1815 first part of SARABANDA 62 21 September 1815 SCOTIUM + D. of PLATES 32 63 22 December 1815 first part of SHAMMY 64 28 February 1816 SINDY 33 65 17 May 1816 first part of SOUND 66 27 July 1816 STARBOARD 34 67 26 October 1816 first part of STUART (JAMES) 68 11 December 1816 SZYDLOW 35 69 19 March 1817 first part of TESTUDO 70 1 May 1817 TOLERATION 36 71 13 August 1817 first part of TUMOURS 72 24 October 1817 VERMELHO 37 73 20 December 1817 first part of UNION 74 23 March 1818 WATERLOO 38 75 29 May 1818 first part of WHITBY 76 30 July 1818 WZETIN 39 77 30 December 1818 ZYTOMIERS; & first part of BALDWIN of Addendum + E. of PLATES 78 27 October 1819 ZOLLIKIFER of Addendum + F. of PLATES 79 29 July 1820 PLATES, THEIR REFERENCES AND TITLES

Coincident with the appearance of volume 39, all 39 volumes, A through Z, were published as a set in 1819. The primary publishers of this set were the consortium of Longman, Hurst, Rees (who by then apparently held an equity share), Orme, and Brown, of Paternoster Row. However, correct dating by half volume or fascicle (1802–1820) can have serious implications for the accuracy of citations by modern writers, especially when discussing scientific priority: a list compiled in 1820 in Philosophical Magazine was designed to give proper priority to scientific discoveries. Volumes of plates were issued in blocks, and not with the texts to which they refer. Botanical historian Benjamin Daydon Jackson, unaware of this list, attempted to compile a list based on contemporaneous advertisements in the trade press, on dates appearing on the plates (having assumed that the plates were issued at the same time as the accompanying texts), and some guesswork. He published his first list privately in 1877, he issued a corrected version in 1880, and a final version appeared in the Journal of Botany in 1896. Only 3 of Jackson's dates accord with the 1820 dates listed above.

Approximately 500 articles exceed 15 columns (11,000 words). The longest article is "Canal", by John Farey, Sr., 289 columns (210,000 words). John Landseer wrote 4 articles on schools of European engraving totalling over 600 columns (460,000 words).

Rees's Cyclopaedia has 3789 biographical articles half a page (350 words) and longer, as well as numerous briefer ones. They range in time from Antiquity to the eighteenth century. Benjamin Heath Malkin, and Thomas Rees are noted as having written biographical articles, but there is no information about which. The rest of the authors cannot be positively identified except for William Tooke, who wrote about Catherine the Great. Many of the biographical articles are sourced to the biographical reference books noted in 3.3 above. In most cases Christian names are Anglicised – John for Johannes, for example.

These were written by Charles Burney (1726–1814), with additional material by John Farey, sr (1766–1826), and John Farey, Jr (1791–1851), and illustrated by 53 plates as well a numerous examples of music typset within the articles. Charles Burney was well known as the author of A General History of Music, 4 vol 1776–1789 and two travel diaries recording his Musical Tours collecting information in France and Italy, and later Germany, 1+2 vol, 1771 and 1773, as well as the Commoration of Handel, 1785 and his Musical Memoirs of Metastasio, 1796. John Farey, sr was a polymath, well known today for his work as a geologist and for his investigations of mathematics. He was greatly interested in the mathematics of sound, and the schemes of temperamant used in tuning musical instruments then, and published much about it in contemporary periodicals. His son, John Farey, jr, was also polymathic in his interests. He contributed numerous drawings for the illustrations of mostly technological and scientific topics in Rees, and would have written the descriptions of them. They are always linked by key letters to the details of the drawings. The procedure would have been for Farey to make the drawing first, after usually inspecting and measuring the object, then write the description of it, with the key letters, which were then engraved on the plate for final printing. The plates for dramatic machinery, the organ and barrel organ are by him.

The Cyclopædia was written by about 100 contributors, most of whom were Nonconformists. They were specialists in their fields, covering science, technology, medicine, manufacturing, agriculture, banking and transportation, as well as the arts and humanities. A number were members of the teaching staffs of the Royal Military Academy, and the Addiscombe Military Seminary of the East India Company. Other contributors were working journalists who wrote for scientific, medical and technical periodicals. Several of the contributors were active in radical politics; one was gaoled for sedition and another indicted for treason. Amongst the eminent writers engaged by Rees were Lant Carpenter (1780–1870) on education, mental and moral philosophy; Tiberius Cavallo (1799–1809) on electricity and magnetism; John Flaxman (1755–1826) on sculpture; Luke Howard (1772–1867) on meteorology; John Landseer (1769–1852) on engraving; Sir William Lawrence, (1783–1867) on human and comparative anatomy; Sir James Edward Smith (1759–1828) on botany; David Mushet on metallurgy and chemistry; Rev. William Pearson (1767–1847) on astronomy; Sir Thomas Phillips (1770–1875) on painting. Among the artists and engravers employed were Aaron Arrowsmith (1750–1823) who engraved the maps; William Blake (1757–1827) who made engravings to illustrate some of the sculpture articles; Thomas Milton (1743–1827) who engraved most of the natural history plates; Wilson Lowry (1762–1824) who engraved numerous of the plates especially those relating to architecture, machinery and scientific instruments. Except for some of the botanical articles by Sir James Edward Smith, none of the articles are signed. Names were recorded in the Prospectus of 1802, the introduction at the start of the first volume, the paper covers of the unbound parts which have survived, and in a paper in the Philosophical Magazine, published in 1820. The alphabetical List of contributors to Rees's Cyclopædia has been compiled from the foregoing sources. The majority appear in the Dictionary of National Biography, and in sources listed in the British Biographical Index, but these accounts rarely record an involvement with the Cyclopædia.

The American edition was published by Samuel F. Bradford, of Philadelphia. (see :fr:Samuel F. Bradford). Bradford was a member of the famous family of American printers. The first volume appeared in May 1806 and the last in December 1820. The work extended to 41 volumes of text and 6 of plates. There were 1,851 subscribers recorded. The initial print run was set at 2,500 copies, but Bradford was beset by financial problems, and the project passed to Murray, Draper Fairman and Company who reduced the run to 2,000 copies. The work sold at $4 per half volume or $8 per volume. The full bound set cost $400 in 1820. The religious content of the first volumes was re written to reflect American sensibilities by Bishop William White, an Episcopalian, and Ashbel Green a Presbyterian. Additional American material was incorporated into the text.