Chambers's Encyclopaedia was founded in 1859 by William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh and became one of the most important English language encyclopaedias of the 19th and 20th centuries, developing a reputation for accuracy and scholarliness that was reflected in other works produced by the Chambers publishing company. The encyclopaedia is no longer produced. A selection of illustrations and woodblocks used to produce the first two editions of the encyclopaedia can be seen on a digital resource hosted on the National Museums Scotland website. Chambers's Information for the People Before publishing an encyclopedia, Chambers produced a smaller publication, Chambers's Information for the People. This began as a serial publication in 1835. Like the Penny Cyclopaedia, and others of the time it was meant to be a cheap reference work that was targeted at the middle and working classes. Hence, it focused only on subjects that would be of interest to the common man and pertinent to his self education. It also eschewed the bulky format that and "found it necessary to disregard all common idea as to what constitutes dignity in the externals of books". The undertaking was a success, selling seventy thousand issues in its first year. The original edition consisted of 48 numbered "treatises", plus an unnumbered introductory treatise "An Account of the Earth, Physical and Political." Improved two volume editions were published in 1842 and 1848. A third improved edition appeared in 1857., shortly before the Chambers Brothers publication of the first edition of their major encyclopedia in 1860. Further new, two volume editions were published in 1875 and 1884, both of which are denominated the Fifth edition. Congruently with this a second series of editions were published in Philadelphia by a succession of publishers including J. B. Lippincott. The 1848 edition is stated to be the first American edition, while the 1856 ed. is claimed to be the 15th. Further American editions were published up to 1867. First edition The first edition, entitled Chambers's Encyclopaedia A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People, was partly based on a translation into English of the 10th edition of the German-language Konversations-Lexikon, which would become the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. The publishers found it necessary, however, to supplement the core text with a significant amount of additional material, including more than 4000 illustrations not present in Brockhaus. Andrew Findlater was the acting editor and spent ten years on the project. The