Description

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The publication of the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1911 marked the last stand of the Enlightenment and a turbulent end to an era. The Eleventh Edition summed up the high point of optimism and belief in human progress that dominated Anglo-Saxon thought from the time of the Enlightenment.

Eagerly embraced by hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans, the Eleventh Edition was read as a twenty-nine-volume anthology of some of the best essays written in English. Among the names of those who contributed to its volumes: T. H. Huxley, Algernon Swinburne, Bertrand Russell; it was the work of 1,500 eminent contributors and was edited by Hugh Chisholm, charismatic star editor.

The Britannica combined scholarship and readability in a way no previous encyclopedia had or ever has again. Within less than a decade after its publication, the Edwardian worldview was at an end: the “unsinkable” White Star Titanic had sunk on its maiden voyage; Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and the Great War had begun. 

In Everything Explained That Is Explainable, Denis Boyles tells the audacious, improbable story of twentieth-century American hucksterism and vision that resurrected a dying Encyclopædia Britannica by means of a floundering London Times, and writes of how its astonishing success changed publishing and produced the Britannica’s Eleventh Edition, still the most revered—all 44 million words—of English-language encyclopedias, considered by many to be the last great work of the age of reason.

The author writes of the man whose inspiration it was: Horace Everett Hooper, American entrepreneur who stumbled into the book business at sixteen on a hunch that he could make money selling inexpensive editions of classics by direct mail to isolated settlers scattered across the American West. Hooper found an outdated set of reference books gathering dust in a warehouse, bought them for almost nothing, repackaged them, and sold them on credit as “one-shelf libraries” to farmers concerned about their children’s education in frontier schools; his Western Book and Stationery Company became one of the largest publishers in the Midwest, sending books directly to readers, bypassing traditional booksellers, and inventing a model that was forever after emulated . . .

Boyles writes that Hooper and his partner, Henry Haxton, a former Hearst reporter and ingenious adman, came across the Encyclopædia Britannica, published by Adam & Charles Black, whose Ninth Edition’s final volume, published in 1890, was seen by many as the height of English intellectual achievement. The Ninth had everything an encyclopedia needed. Except readers.

Hooper and Haxton came up with a new market for the encyclopedia’s next two editions, which they planned to produce, and approached the then-struggling London Times, which became their publishing partner.

Boyles tells the outlandish, bumpy tale of the making of the Eleventh; of the young staff of university graduates working with fanatical conviction (40,000 entries by 1,500-odd contributors), scattered around the globe . . . more than 200 members of the Royal Society or fellows of the British Academy; diplomats; government officials; officers of learned societies . . . contributions by the most admired writers, thinkers, and scientists of the day; of their scheme to sell the Eleventh Edition and of the storm that erupted around its publication—and after.

An extraordinary tale of American know-how, enterprise, and spirit.

About the Author

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DENIS BOYLES is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, travel, humor, essays, and criticism. He is a veteran magazine editor, and currently a coeditor of The Fortnightly Review. Boyles teaches journalism and political science at the Institut Catholique d’Études Supérieures in La Roche-sur-Yon, France. 

www.denisboyles.com

Praise For…

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Praise for Denis Boyles
EVERYTHING EXPLAINED THAT IS EXPLAINABLE
 
“Delightful . . . Lively and quirky, ballasted by hard work, lit by flashes of wit. Like the 11th itself, it highlights interesting people and odd turns of events, without ever losing the long arc of its purpose.”
—Richard Brookhiser, Claremont Review of Books
 
“Compelling . . . Brilliant . . . EB Eleven has 40,000 entries, more than double that of EB Nine, and an index with ten times that number of topics, but its most miraculous achievement may have been that of its American promoter and overseer in bringing the project to its conclusion. It’s a terrific tale, and Boyles has told it more fully than his predecessors.”
—Robert DeMaria Jr., The Times Literary Supplement
 
 “Clever . . . A remarkable story of American ingenuity . . . We see the yearnings of an informed populace on the frontier, seeking wisdom with their newfound wealth. We also discover a last hurrah for an age whose belief in endless progress would soon be doomed by the Great War, World War I. This is not just a book about the rebirth of a great literary event, though it is that, it is a metaphor for what that world view represented, on the eve of its demise.
—John Davis, Decatur Daily
 
“A suspenseful new work of history.”
—Rob Nufeld, Ashville Citizen-Times
 
“Highly readable . . . Denis Boyles limns the intricate business of negotiations that went into the creation of the Eleventh Edition . . . Boyles provides excellent portraits of the key figures responsible for the 19th- and early-20th-century editions of the Britannica.”
—Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal
 
“A thorough and engaging telling of the Eleventh Edition’s conception and birth, midwifed by an eclectic group of madcaps who succeeded in producing a literary treasure the likes of which will never be seen again.”
—David Bahr, National Review
 
“Almost reads like fantastic fiction. The book drops you into a time when print publishers possessed the same dynamism as today’s web developers and authors celebrated as much fame as prime time pundits . . . Engaging.”
—Jeff Milo, Paste
 
“An encyclopedic biography of the iconic reference work . . . A surfeit of information on the Encyclopædia Britannica . . . Entertaining . . . Fun . . . Boyles shows in great detail that the Britannica was as much a product of advertising and marketing as it was of condensed knowledge . . . Boyles writes with such a mordant touch his chapters move along even as they assault you with hurricanes of information.”
—Matthew Price, The Boston Globe
 
“A definitive and meticulously researched chronicle of the creation of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s Eleventh Edition.”
—Donald Liebenson, The Chicago Tribune
 
“The latest word on everything—that was the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica when it first appeared in 1910. It would become immortal, not only because of its distinguished contributors, from Swinbourne to Huxley and Bertrand Russell, but because it was considered “the sum of human knowledge’—or almost. Dennis Boyles's lively, unexpected and erudite set of essays tells us why.”
—Meryle Secrest
 
“In Everything Explained that is Explainable, Denis Boyles brings to life a rollicking saga of outlandish schemes, copyright theft, lawsuits, buyouts, and bankruptcies.”
—James Gibney, The American Scholar
 
“Boyles’s account of how this classic reference work came to be published in 1910-1911 makes for enthralling business history.”
—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
 
“How grit and determination created an encyclopedia for the modern world . . . Boyles traces the evolution of the Britannica and the fate of the Times through lawsuits, battles for ownership, and ongoing money woes involving colorful, earnest, sometimes eccentric characters . . . Illuminating . . . A well-researched, brightly told history of the men and women who saved a great compendium of knowledge.”
—Kirkus Reviews