Encyclopædia Britannica-Book of the Year 1938

THE "Encyclopaedia Britannica", in common with other institutions of world-wide fame, changes its methods to suit the demands of a changing era. Time was, when a batch of supplementary volumes might be added to the old to make a new edition. So the ninth edition of 1875-1889, reinforced by a massive group of supplements, appeared as the tenth edition of 1902, and this, which was destined to endure until 1911, was replaced in that year by an entirely recast edition, the eleventh-an edition still held in high esteem by those who love the detailed and technical scholarship of the older editions. The twelfth and thirteenth editions were made by adding supplementary volumes to this eleventh edition, and the fourteenth edition of 1931 was almost entirely new, giving expression to a policy which departed from that of the older editions in favour of a rather more popular though not necessarily less scholarly outlook.