{"id":684,"date":"2011-01-04T12:34:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T17:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/"},"modified":"2011-01-04T12:34:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T17:34:41","slug":"octavo-edition","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/diderots-encyclopedia-exhibit-preview\/octavo-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Octavo Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_685\" style=\"width: 189px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/01\/OctavoTP.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-685\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-685\" class=\"wp-image-685 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/01\/OctavoTP-179x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"179\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-685\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Title Page of the Octavo Edition<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The first folio edition of the <em>Encyclop\u00e9die <\/em>was not only a monumental expression of French Enlightenment thought and a contemporary political and intellectual scandal.\u00a0 It was also a commercial success, reaping huge profits for the initial coalition of Parisian publishers.\u00a0 The potential for profit prompted subsequent less expensive, smaller format editions.\u00a0 Over 8000 copies in quarto format appeared in the 1770s, and cost only a third to a half the price of the folio volumes.\u00a0 Between 1778 and 1782 an octavo edition of 6000 was published, and sold for even less.<\/p>\n<p>The number of plates in these editions was reduced by nearly 75%, and most of the deleted images were those depicting the mechanical arts (the focus of this show).\u00a0 The editors for these cheaper editions decided that the military officers, administrators and lawyers whom they were targeting had little interest in the manufacturing trades.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_686\" style=\"width: 257px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/01\/Surgery_Octavo.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-686\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-686\" class=\"wp-image-686 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/01\/Surgery_Octavo-247x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-686\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surgery Plate<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The image to the left is a facsimile of one of the \u201cSurgery\u201d plates, which were deemed more interesting for late eighteenth-century French professionals.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the first folio edition featured prominently in the Gallery, MIT also owns a copy of the 1778-1782 Lausanne octavo edition, donated in 1942 by Edward H. Davis, class of 1900.\u00a0 It was in the open stack reference collection for several decades, before being transferred to Special Collections.\u00a0 The title page above is a facsimile from the first volume.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first folio edition of the Encyclop\u00e9die was not only a monumental expression of French Enlightenment thought and a contemporary political and intellectual scandal.\u00a0 It was also a commercial success, reaping huge profits for the initial coalition of Parisian publishers.\u00a0 The potential for profit prompted subsequent less expensive, smaller format editions.\u00a0 Over 8000 copies in quarto format appeared in the 1770s, and cost only a third to a half the price of the folio volumes.\u00a0 Between 1778 and 1782 an octavo edition of 6000 was published, and sold for even less. The number of plates in these editions was reduced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109,"parent":3215,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"templates\/page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/684\/revisions\/3615"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}