page_title: Low's Encyclopaedia
section_title: Production and authorship
hierarchical_section_title: Low's Encyclopaedia / Production and authorship
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of United States. After the statehood of Tennessee (1796) but before that of Ohio (1803)
context_page_description: Low's Encyclopædia is an early American encyclopedia, titled The New and Complete American Encyclopædia or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. It was published in New York City, from 1805 to 1811. Consisting of seven volumes quarto, it is noteworthy among America's earliest encyclopedias for having been written in the United States, as opposed to being an American reprint of a British work, as were, for examples, Dobson's Encyclopedia, the Bradford printing of Rees's Cyclopædia, Samuel A. Mitchell's American printing of the British Encyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, or the Birch and Small printing of the Domestic Encyclopedia.
context_section_description: Plans for the encyclopedia were begun, and subscriptions began being taken, much earlier than the original publication date, as it is known that around 1802, Thomas Jefferson subscribed to a set, which was delivered in 1811 for $75. Its intention was to compete with Dobson's Encyclopedia, as stated in the "Preface", which was written in 1811 by Esther Low:
  The motive that produced the publication of this Encyclopædia originated in the general voice of a numerous class of readers; who, although they might have been ever so anxious for the promulgation of literature, were yet induced to express their regret, that another similar work which had been published at Philadelphia, was of too voluminous and expensive a nature to answer the beneficial purposes of a general circulation. To remedy this complaint, they chose to decide in favor of another compilation; which, whilst it should embrace all the utility without the diffuseness of the former, would nevertheless, prove equally interesting, and at the same time more conveniently portable, and might be procured at nearly one-fourth of the expense.
  No author or editor is mentioned in the preface, only:
  ...although it may be considered as a compilation of all the best dictionaries and books of science extant, yet it may justly claim in other respects, a right to originality; as a vast mass of matter has been generously supplied by men of the first eminence in the various pursuits of literature, as well natives of America as foreigners of distinction; who were well versed in the Mathematical, Theological, Physical, and other departments. To enumerate their names would be impracticable in the present instance, and to particularise (sic) any, might be thought invidious; they are all of them entitled to the warmest thanks of the publishers for their communications on the several topics on which they have so ably written. The Geographical, Botanical, and Chemical parts are nearly all original; as well as those of Agriculture, Gardening, etc.
caption: Map of United States. After the statehood of Tennessee (1796) but before that of Ohio (1803)
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