New American Cyclopædia

The New American Cyclopædia was a general encyclopedia with a special focus on subjects related to the United States. As it was created over the years spanning the American Civil War, the focus and tone of articles could change drastically; for example, Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederate States of America, was treated at length as a United States Army soldier and US government politician in pre-war editions.^[2]

As was traditional, the entire set was re-issued with the publication in 1863 of the 16th volume. The whole Cyclopædia was again re-issued in 1864.

A notable contributor was Karl Marx, then a European correspondent for the New York Tribune, who, appeared as the writer, while most of those articles were written by Friedrich Engels, especially the articles on military affairs,^[3] which belonged in Engels' domain in the division of labor between the two friends. Because of his deep knowledge of all things military, Engels had earned the nickname "General".^[3] Marx wrote a highly unsympathetic biographical article on Simon Bolivar.^[3][4]

Other prominent contributors to the first edition included^[5]

An associated yearbook, Appletons' Annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year, was published from 1861 to 1875 and on to 1902.^[6]

The cyclopaedia was revived under the title American Cyclopædia in 1873–6. A final edition was issued in 1883–4, which added supplements to each volume of the 1873 edition. Two analytical indexes were published separately in 1878 and 1884.^[7]

• Lists of encyclopedias

• Carl Burnham (July 2004). "The New American Cyclopedia, 1857 – 1866: A Time Capsule of the 19th century". Rare Book Monthly. Retrieved 2018-01-28.

• Links to digitized volumes of the American Cyclopædia

• George Ripley; Charles A. Dana, eds. (1879). The American Cyclopaedia (2nd ed.). New York: D. Appleton and Company.