Cornelius Tiebout Engravings

Part 8. Rees's New Cyclopædia

Early in the nineteenth century, there were several encyclopedias published in England. One of these was The Cyclopædia, edited by Abraham Rees (1743-1825); see Wikipedia: Abraham Rees. The Cyclopædia appeared serially during 1802-1820, in 39 volumes of text and 6 volumes of plates, with a total of about 39 million words. The American edition was published during 1806-1820, in 41 volumes of text and 6 volumes of plates. It was published in 20 American cities, some with title The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, others with title The New Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: formed upon a more enlarged plan of arrangement than the dictionary of Mr. Chambers. Comprehending the various articles of that work, with additions and improvements; together with the new subjects of biography, geography, and history; and adapted to the present state of literature and science. This new Cyclopædia includes material not found in the British edtion.

The Wikipedia article, Cyclopædia, lists the 41 volumes of text with links to Hathitrust copies of the volumes. The end of the article shows a list of the 6 plate-volumes, also with Hathitrust links, as follows:

Plate-Volume 1 (Agriculture – Astronomy)
Plate-Volume 2 (Basso-Relievo – Horology)
Plate-Volume 3 (Hydraulics – Naval architecture)
Plate-Volume 4 (Navigation – Writing by cipher)
Plate-Volume 5 (Natural History)
Plate-Volume 6 (Atlas)

Twenty-two American engravers are represented in the first five plate-volumes.

Anderson, Hugh; 1782-1866
Boyd, John
Childs, Cephas Griera; 1793-1871
Edwin, David; 1776-1841
Exilious, John G.
Fairman, Gideon; 1774-1827
Fairman, Richard; 1788-1821
Gobrecht, Christian F.; 1785-1844
Haines, D.
Hay, William H.
Humphrys, William; 1794-1865
Kneass, William; 1780-1840
Longacre, James Barton; 1794-1869
Mason, David H.
Murray, George; ?-1822
Neagle, John; 1796-1865
Nesmith, James H.
Seymour, Joseph H.
Tanner, Benjamin; 1775-1848
Thackara, James; 1767-1848
Tiebout, Cornelius; 1773?-1832
Vallance, John; 1770-1823

Many of the illustrations in the American edition of The Cyclopædia are not in the London edition. Among the seven illustrators in the American edition, three were American:

John Farey (1766-1825; geologist, Farey sequences in mathematics)
Henry Howard (1769-1847)
David Martin (1737-1797)
Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741-1827)
Thomas Sully (British-born American, 1783-1872)
Benjamin Trott (American, c.1770-1843)
Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854, clock maker)

A total of 77 plates in the American edition - that is the New Cyclopædia, were engraved by Cornelius Tiebout. This count includes several plates that were jointly engraved by Tiebout and another engraver. The number of Tiebout engravings in the six plate-volumes are, respectively, 26, 23, 11, 11, 6, and 0. In the carousel, these images are indexed by digital-page number; e.g., the plate indexed as "Rees plate-vol 5 dp 101" is on digital-page 101 of Plate-Volume 5 in the Hathitrust site listed above.

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