Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie [The Encyclopedia]

David J. Adams (University of Manchester)

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Ed. by David Williams, University of Sheffield
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Severine Genieys-Kirk (University of Edinburgh), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1751 - 1780

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Encyclopaedia

Resources

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The first text volume of the

Encyclopédie

was published in 1751; six more followed, at roughly yearly intervals, up to 1757. The last ten volumes of text appeared together in 1765. Eleven volumes of plates were published at intervals between 1762 and 1772. Four supplementary volumes of text, and one of plates, came out in 1776-77. A two-volume index was published in 1780, making thirty-five volumes in all.

The history of the Encyclopédie might be said to encapsulate the struggle between reform and reaction in pre-Revolutionary France. The project had its origins in a plan to capitalise on the contemporary vogue for works of reference by producing a French translation of Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728). This work, in two folio volumes,

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2544 words

Citation: Adams, David J.. "Encyclopédie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 May 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5371, accessed 02 April 2025.]