Abraham Rees (1743–1825), compiler of Rees's Cyclopædia.Jedediah Strutt, North Mill at Belper, Derbyshire. Rees's Cyclopædia, 1802–1819. Drawn by John Farey, jr, and engraved by Wilson Lowry.
The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature is an important 19th century Britishencyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar who had edited previous editions of Chambers's Cyclopædia. Many major scholars of the day contributed. 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.[1]
Serially published from 1802 to 1820, the Cyclopædia was criticised for its idiosyncratic topic selection and alphabetization standards. Hostile reviews in the Anti-Jacobin Review (1802–1805) complained about its supposed anti-religious aspects and radical standpoints attributed to its editor and contributors, and cited lack of article balance, confusing alphabetization, and cross-references to then-unpublished volumes. The British Critic less stridently criticised lack of balance and confusion. The Quarterly Review[2] commented in 1863, "Rees is the most extensive cyclopædia in English with many excellent articles it has generally been condemned as on the whole too diffuse and too commonplace." In 1948 Percy Scholes published his biography The Great Dr Burney, 2 vol., and devoted a chapter to Charles Burney's work for Rees, discussing in some detail the faults of the work, in particular, the way the serial production caused major problems when editors were faced with new knowledge that appeared after the volume containing the appropriate section had been issued.[3] They addressed this partially with an appendix in the last volume.
The Rees Project, was instigated by Professor June Zimmerman Fullmer, who independently indexed the Cyclopædia. After tapping the invisible college[4][5] of scholars who knew of Rees, she convened a summer 1986 meeting in London, following which she wrote a proposal[6] 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.
The Cyclopædia lacks a classified index volume. In 1820, Philosophical Magazine analysed the work's contents by half-volume publication dates, as proper priority had not been given to serially published scientific discoveries.[7] The following are notable topics covered by the Cyclopædia (containing over 15 columns).
Notes: In the original Cyclopædia, the letters I and J are treated as identical, as are U and V, following ancient Latin conventions; each pair forms one sequence in the alphabetical order of the articles. Two-year dating of volumes indicates separate publication dates for half-volumes. Contributors' names have been attributed based on the 1820 analysis.[7]
^The article text cites "the author" as having invented the machine shown in the relevant illustration plates; said plates attribute it to John Duncan, who was a contributor to other articles.
