After Cox failed to raise the money needed to publish the fourteenth edition, Sears ended up financing it, and resumed ownership of Britannica in 1928.

They published the twelfth and thirteenth editions in 19. In 1923, they sold the company back to the widow of Hooper (who had died in 1922) and her brother William Cox. In 1920, Sears bought Britannica outright, and after only three years of operation, Sears reported a loss of $1.8 million. In 1915, Sears agreed to market a new and less expensive version of the eleventh edition for middle-class buyers. Hugh Chisholm became the editor for the tenth, eleventh and twelfth editions. Hooper and Jackson formed companies in both the United States and England. Jackson purchased all copyrights to the encyclopædia. The ninth edition has since been acknowledged as one of the most impressive collections of scholarship ever produced. īeginning with the ninth edition in 1875, the range of topics were expanded by bringing in contributors from the literary field, social sciences and the scientific community. bought the copyrights to the encyclopædia at auction, and they published it for the next 70 years. When Constable died in 1827, A & C Black Ltd. Īrchibald Constable, an Edinburgh publisher, published the fifth and sixth editions. After Macfarquhar's death in 1793, Bell became its sole proprietor and published the third and fourth editions. The second edition was published in 1784. The pair engaged William Smellie, who produced most of the articles in the first edition. Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell began the first edition in 1768. The company was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 18th century, during the historical period termed the Scottish Enlightenment. Since then, Britannica has published the encyclopedia exclusively online.įront page of volume 3 of the 1778 Encyclopædia Britannica By the time the company had stopped publishing the print editions, printed sales only represented about 1% of their business. In 2012, after 244 years, Britannica ended the print editions, with the 32 volumes of the 2010 encyclopædia being the last to be printed in the traditional hard-bound volumes.

Jacqui Safra, President, Jorge Cauz, Global CEOĪbout 400 (300 in Chicago, 100 worldwide) Įncyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a British-American company known for publishing the Encyclopædia Britannica, the world's oldest continuously published encyclopaedia, as well as extensive digital efforts-including text and audiovisual-that are aimed at educational tools for primary and secondary schools, and for everyday learners accessing information through online search.

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