List of Rees's Cyclopædia articles
Article Classification Columns
Force Mechanics 39.7
Foundry Technology 16.3
Fracture Surgery 71.2
Fragaria Botany 15.5
France History 42.6
French school of engraving Arts 224.7
Function Analysis 51.5
Fungus Surgery 18.8
Furnace Technology 16.2
Furs Commerce 26.3
Galvanism Electricity 17.2
Gangrene Medicine 16.1
Gate Rural Economy 18.9
Gems , engraving of Arts 24.7
Gems Miscellaneous 18.6
Volume 15
Food – Generation Vol 15 , 1810
The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature is an important 19th century British encyclopaedia 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. Serially published from 1802 to 1820, the Cyclopædia was criticised for its idiosyncratic topic selection and alphabetisation standards. Hostile reviews in the Anti-Jacobin Review (1802-1805) complained about its supposed antireligious aspects and radical standpoints attributed to its editor and contributors, and cited lack of article balance, confusing alphabetisation, and cross-references to then-unpublished volumes. The British Critic less stridently criticised lack of balance and confusion. The Quarterly Review 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. 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 of scholars who knew of Rees, she convened a summer 1986 meeting in London, following which she wrote a proposal 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.