phoebe ayers wrote:
Here's a historical tidbit from a lovely book
I'm slowly reading by Robert
Collison called "Encyclopedias: their history throughout the ages" (1966) --
he claims that Johann Heinrich Zedler's "Grosses vollstandiges
Universal-Lexicon", first pub. in 1731, was the first encyclopedia to
include biographies of living people. Not sure, in turn, how he figured this
out (extensive historical research, I think) but it's nice to know that
living bios have at least as long a pedigree in the modern encyclopedia as
philosophical articles (e.g. the "Encyclopedie", first published in 1751)
and technical/practical articles (e.g. Chambers' "Cyclopedia", first
published in 1728).
Incidentally, if any of you are encyclopedia fans and you find an
inexpensive copy of Collison's book, buy it -- it's out of print and
difficult to find.
I found 13 copies listed at Abebooks, with the cheapest being for
$50.00. It is a British publication so it uses the Encyclopaedia
spelling in its title.
Ec