Encyclopédie Méthodique

Arranged by disciplines, it was a revised and much expanded version, in roughly 210 to 216 volumes (different sets were bound differently), of the alphabetically arranged Encyclopédie, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

For certain topics, such as air (which belonged equally to chemistry, physics and medicine), the methodical arrangement had the unexpected effect of breaking up a single article into several parts.

The number of subscribers, 4072, was so great that the subscription list for the price of 672 livres was closed on April 30.

[1] The complaints of the subscribers and his own heavy advances of over 150,000 livres induced Panckoucke, in November 1788, to appeal to the authors to finish the work.

Those who were behind made new contracts, giving their word of honor to put their parts to press by 1788, so that Panckoucke hoped to finish the whole, including the Vocabulaire universel (4 or 5 vols.)

[1] Entire topics such as architecture, engineering, hunting, police, and games had been overlooked in the prospectus.

On the other hand, eighteen volumes were now finished: Mathématics, games, surgery, ancient and modern geography, history, theology, logic, grammar, jurisprudence, finance, political economy, commerce, marine, military science, academic art, arts and crafts, and Encyclopédiana.

Of the three parts of Assemblée Nationale: only volume 2, i.e. "Debates", appeared in 1792, with 804 pages (Absens to Aurillac).

Pharmacy (separated from chemistry), minerals, education, Ponts et chausses were not published as had been announced.

The one in Oeconomie politique is an excellent example, giving the contents of each article, so that any passage can be found easily.

As the Vocabulaire Universel, the key and index to the entire work, was not published, it was difficult to carry out any research or to find all the articles on any particular subject.

The original parts had often been subdivided, and had been so added onto by other dictionaries, supplements, and appendices that an exact account could not be given of the work, which contained 88 alphabets, 83 indexes, 166 introductions, discourses, prefaces, etc.

[1] The Encyclopédie méthodique par ordre des matières occupied a thousand workers in production, and 2,250 contributors.