Got this book recommendation last week about Enlightenment thinkers, and it kept mentioning this French encyclopedia thing. Figured hey, I know Diderot! Didn’t he make that? So I started there. Poked around online, typed “first French encyclopedia” into a search bar. Simple start.
The Surprise Twist
Turns out, I was dead wrong about Diderot being first. My eyes popped seeing search results talking about older stuff. Chambers? Ephraim? Who the heck are these guys? Saw a title – Chambers’ Cyclopaedia – dated like 1728. Way before Diderot’s project. Felt like I tripped over a history rock I didn’t see.
The Rabbit Hole
- Dove deeper into Chambers. Learned he was English. His Cyclopaedia was massive back then.
- Stumbled onto another name: Ephraim Chambers. Confused him with “Chambers” at first – same name?! Nope, different guy entirely.
- Saw mentions of a French translation of Chambers’ work popping up around the mid-1700s.
- Kept reading forums and old digital library blurbs. One line hit me: a guy named Guillaume Le Blond was involved in translating Chambers into French. My notes got messy here – scribbled “Le Blond?? Translation = first French one?” Felt like chasing ghosts.
The Volume Shock & The Confusion
Then I saw it. Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. The famous one. Searched its publication date: 1751. Okay, later. But then I saw its size. 35 freaking volumes?! How do you even make that without printing presses eating your soul? And they said it took decades? Staring at that number, it clicked why it’s the famous one – the sheer scale is insane.
But wait – what about that French Chambers translation? Wasn’t that earlier? Cross-checking dates… yeah. The translation started appearing in the 1740s. Diderot’s started later. So technically, wasn’t the translated Chambers’ work the actual first encyclopedia available in French? Felt like I needed a flowchart.Untangling the Mess
- Chambers’ Cyclopaedia (English): Original 1728 masterpiece. Written by an Englishman.
- French Translation of Chambers: Came later, 1740s-ish. Translated his work into French. So this became an encyclopedia in French, but not originally French.
- Diderot & d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie: Started 1751. This beast was original, written from scratch in French, heavily influenced by Chambers, but French-born and huge. This is the game-changer everyone remembers.
So the answer clicked: Chambers inspired it all, but he wasn’t French. His ideas got translated into French first, making that translation the very first encyclopedia in French that people could read. But the first giant, earth-shaking, originally written in French encyclopedia? That’s the Encyclopédie. Diderot and co. built the French monument, but they stood on Chambers’ shoulders. Felt like finally putting a puzzle together after dropping half the pieces. History’s messy, man.
