in freedom of speech, and worship, information and association rather than in any totalitarian conception". The publication was celebrated at a luncheon at Grocers' Hall attended by over one hundred contributors and chaired by Sir Frank Newnes. It was announced that the encyclopaedia, which had taken six years to prepare, had cost £500,000 and included the work of over 2,300 authors. Lord Jowitt, the Lord Chancellor, gave the toast and described the endeavour as "outstanding proof" of British scholarship, while Mrs Law commented that she believed the work to be the first major encyclopaedia to be published in Britain since before the First World War. Subsequent reports from the publishers, Newnes, confirmed that the work was a great success, with sales requiring regular reprinting; this allowed for considerable revision of the work. By the 1961 revised edition, several million words had been revised or replaced and over half the total pages had been reset or changed in some way. The encyclopaedia was regarded as such a scholarly achievement that Mrs Law was made an OBE for her efforts. She retired in 1963. Unlike other encyclopedias of the time, Chambers's Encyclopaedia forwent annual revision and attempted to publish new editions at roughly five-year intervals. A new edition was published in 1955 and another at the turn of the next decade. Pergamon era The Encyclopaedia was acquired by Pergamon Press in 1966, the same year as the next edition was published. Despite its publication date, information within the set was not up to date beyond 1963. A revised printing was made in 1973 and the encyclopedia went out of print in 1979. The final edition included 12,600 pages, 28,000 articles, and 14.5 million words. The articles averaged slightly more than 500 words, or half a page, each. There were 4,500 illustrations, mostly in black and white and 416 maps. 3,000 contributors were listed in the final volume and all but the briefest articles were signed. There were 10,000 cross references and an index of 225,000 entries. See also Chambers Dictionary Chambers Harrap Robert Chambers William Chambers References Attribution Democratising knowledge and visualising progress: illustrations from Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 1859–1892 Further reading Roberto, R. (2019) Democratising knowledge and visualising progress: illustrations from Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 1859–1892. PhD thesis, University of Reading Roberto, R. (2018) `Illustrating Animals and Visualizing Natural History in Chambers's Encyclopaedias.' IN Comforting Creatures / 57e Congrès de la SAES : (Re)Construction(s) External