Ephraim Chambers (c.1680-1740), apprenticed to a London cartographer, 'was seized by the idea that Harris's Lexicon needed bringing up to date and that he was the man to do this 'work so seemingly disproportionate to any single person's experience. A good French scholar, he adapted MorÈri and Bayle to the common-sense climate of the English Enlightenment. Moreover, he introduced a novel device that has proved indispensable to every subsequent lexicographer and encyclopaedist, namely, cross-references; so that "a chain may be carried on from one end of an art to the other". 'Though to Harris must go the honours of compiling the first true English encyclopaedia, Chambers is clearly the father of the modern encyclopaedia throughout the world' (Collison, p. 103). Regarding this fundamentally important work, Walsh has written: 'Although the Cyclopaedia is now but a landmark in the history of encylopedia publishing, its impact and influence upon later generations was incalculable. It directly influenced the famous French EncyclopÈdie of Diderot, and the New Encylopaedia compiled by Abraham Rees and published between 1802 and 1820 ... Less directly, the pioneering example of the Cyclopaedia stimulated the publication of the Encylopaedia Britannica and many subsequent works'

futher notes

Bookseller Notes

GEORGE III (r. 1760-1820) George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language.
One of the most cultured of monarchs, George started a new royal collection of books (65,000 of his books were later given to the British Museum, as the nucleus of a national library) and opened his library to scholars. In 1768, George founded and paid the initial costs of the Royal Academy of Arts (now famous for its exhibitions). He was the first king to study science as part of his education (he had his own astronomical observatory), and examples of his collection of scientific instruments can now be seen in the Science Museum.
George III was the most passionate book collector in the history of the monarchy. Although much of the King's extensive library formed part of the second royal gift to the British Museum in 1823. Many of the books reflect George III's greatest interests, such as agriculture and architecture, and are annotated in his hand. As the writer Thomas de Quincy noted, 'his care extended even to the dressing of the books in appropriate bindings, and...to their health'. The displays include a selection of the King's bookbinding tools, still in use today.