Encyclopaedia Britannica;

complete with both supplementary volumes

'The most famous of all encyclopaedias in the English language' (PMM). A beautiful set in early nineteenth-century tree calf, complete with both supplementary volumes and all 592 engraved plates and maps.

Originally published in 1777 in three volumes, the third edition marks the appearance of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the way we know it today. The text was probably compiled by the editor and antiquarian William Smellie (1740-1795), the engraver Andrew Bell (1726-1809), and the printer Colin Macfarquhar (d.1793).

Although indebted to John Harris's Lexicon Technicum (1704) and Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopedia (1728), the Britannica diverged from their alphabetical models by arranging entries under subject matter: 'Whoever has had occasion to consult Chambers, Owen, &c. or even the voluminous French Encyclopedie, will have discovered the folly of attempting to communicate science under the various technical terms arranged in an alphabetical order. Such an attempt is repugnant to the very idea of science, which is a connected series of conclusions deduced from self-evident or previously discovered principles'.

With provenance for the Williams family of Bridehead in Dorset. The elder Williams (1767-1847) purchased the estate in around 1797, having made his fortune in banking. He served as Sheriff of London from 1797 to 1798, and later as Member of Parliament for Wooton Bassett (1802-1807), Killenny City (1809-1812), and Dorchester (1812-1835), where he was succeeded by his son, the Conservative politician Robert Williams (1811-1890), who held the seat until he stepped down from the House of Commons at the 1841 general election.

Third edition, 22 vols including 2 supplementary vols; 4to (28 x 22 cm); complete with frontispiece and 592 engraved plates and maps (some folding and a few with hand-colouring), bookplate to front pastedowns, occasional light spotting to fore-edge else internally crisp and clean; early 19th-century tree-calf, covers with single gilt fillet borders, gilt spines in 6 compartments, contrasting red and green-black morocco lettering-pieces (some of the volume labels renewed), joints and corners expertly restored, boards a little marked, very good or better.