Encyclopédie

The Encyclopédie was a famous set of books from France. It was published between 1751 and 1772.

This work helped spread new ideas during a time called the Enlightenment. The main goal was to change how people think. The editors wanted people to inform themselves about the world. It was an early way to share knowledge with many people. This idea is called the democratization of knowledge.

However, the first edition was very expensive. It cost 980 livres, so many middle-class people could not buy it.

Making the books was a huge task. It started as a plan to translate a book from London. This London book was the Cyclopaedia by Ephraim Chambers.

The French project grew into something much bigger. The first edition had seventeen large volumes of text. It also had eleven volumes of beautiful engravings. These engravings are called plates. They showed many details about the mechanical arts. This was the first time an encyclopedia described how machines work so closely. Later, they made smaller versions so more people in Europe could read them.

Many people helped create this massive work. The main editor was Denis Diderot. He worked on it for 25 years. Jean le Rond d'Alembert was also a co-editor for a while. The people who helped write were called Encyclopédistes. Some writers were famous thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau. One man named Louis de Jaucourt was incredibly busy. He wrote 17,266 articles between 1759 and 1765. That is about eight articles every single day! He wrote about 25% of the whole project.

Creating the books was not always easy. The French government sometimes tried to stop the project. In 1752, a royal edict suspended the books. Officials thought the ideas might cause revolt or error. In 1759, the government suspended the privilege to publish it. But the work did not stop. Diderot and the publishers kept working in secret. They even used a different place of publication. They claimed the books came from Neuchâtel to stay safe. Neuchâtel was a safe place across the French border.

Today, we see the spirit of the Encyclopédie in our own books. It was one of the first to give credit to writers. They used small symbols at the end of articles. For example, an "O" meant d'Alembert wrote it. This helped readers know who provided the facts. The project was very successful for the publishers. They earned more than two million livres in profit. Later, a much larger version was made. It had 166 volumes and used 2,250 contributors. It shows how much people value learning.