First research post!

Just thought I'd get the ball rolling with the VERY brief bit of research I've done. Don't get too excited, you probably all found it too. It's just the stuff I found in a quick google search, but I figured it was a start.

So the first encyclopaedia...I'm assuming from what I found, that what we're looking at is the 'Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers' ? If thats not right then you can completely ignore this post :P

I found two online copies of the encyclopaedia, one in french here which google chrome rather handily translated for me...it's pretty difficult to read, and unless you want to go through the entire thing finding out what they included, probably not the most helpful... but it's a start!!

Then there is another copy of it with an english interface here. The actual articles are again in French and are, surprisingly enough, still not necessarily all that helpful. However on the first page of the site it does give you a little bit of background info, which I have summarised:

• it was published under the supervision of Diderot d'Alembert between 1751 and 1772
• it contains 17 volumes of text, 11 volumes of plates and 72,000 articles
• it had over 140 contributors
• it is considered to have had a huge impact, and gave wider access to knowledge which would normally have been exclusive to those involved in their specific fields.

The site also includes a few other bits and pieces, like an editors note and pictures of the front cover of the encyclopaedia.

Like I said, just a little bit to get everything started...no epiphanies here I'm afraid!!