George Gleig, Colin MacFarquhar

A handsome set of the third edition of the "most famous of all encyclopedias in the English language" (PMM), illustrated with 592 engraved plates and maps in the original speckled calf with the two-volume supplement.

• Sold as a set of 22.
• George Gleig (Scottish).
• Colin MacFarquhar (Scottish).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Miscellaneous Literature...
• Edinburgh: Printed for A. Bell and C. MacFarquhar, 1797–1803.
• Quarto.
• Includes 592 engraved plates and maps (including frontispiece, folding plates, two plates partly colored), plate number CCXXXVIII not used.
• Bound in contemporary speckled calf, panels doubled-ruled in gilt, gilt spine, contrasting red and black morocco lettering pieces to spine.

Originally published in 1777 in three volumes, the third edition marks the appearance of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the way we know it today. The text was probably compiled by the editor and antiquarian William Smellie (1740–1795), the engraver Andrew Bell (1726–1809) and the printer Colin Macfarquhar (d. 1793).

Although indebted to John Harris's Lexicon Technicum (1704) and Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopedia (1728), the Britannica diverged from their alphabetical models by arranging entries under subject matter: "Whoever has had occasion to consult Chambers, Owen, &c. or even the voluminous French Encyclopedie, will have discovered the folly of attempting to communicate science under the various technical terms arranged in an alphabetical order. Such an attempt is repugnant to the very idea of science, which is a connected series of conclusions deduced from self-evident or previously discovered principles."

ESTC N6642.

Alston III 563.

cf.PMM 218.