CABINET CYCLOPæDIA,
CONDUCTED BY THE
REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL. D. F.R.S. L.&.E.
M.R.I.A. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. M. Ast. S.&c.&c.
ASSISTED BY
EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
Now Publishing by Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, and for sale by all Booksellers
This work will form a popular compendium of whatever is useful, instructive,
and interesting, in the circle of human knowledge. A novel plan of publication
and arrangement has been adopted, which presents peculiar advantages. Without
fully detailing the method, a few of these advantages may be mentioned.
Each volume will contain one or more subjects uninterrupted and unbroken,
and will be accompanied by the corresponding plates or other appropriate illustrations.
Facility of reference will be obtained without fettering the work by
a continued alphabetical arrangement. A subscriber may omit particular volumes
or sets of volumes, without disintegrating his series. Thus each purchaser
may form from the “Cabinet” a Cyclopædia, more or less comprehensive, as
may suit his means, taste, or profession. If a subscriber desire to discontinue
the work at any stage of its publication, the volumes which he may have received
will not lose their value by separation from the rest of the work, since
they will always either be complete in themselves, or may be made so at a trifling
expense.
The purchasers will never find their property in this work destroyed by the
publication of a second edition. The arrangement is such that particular volumes
may be re-edited or re-written without disturbing the others. The “Cabinet
Cyclopædia” will thus be in a state of continual renovation, keeping pace
with the never-ceasing improvements in knowledge, drawing within its circle
from year to year whatever is new, and casting off whatever is obsolete, so as to
form a constantly modernized Cyclopædia. Such are a few of the advantages
which the proprietors have to offer to the public, and which they pledge themselves
to realize.
Treatises on subjects which are technical and professional will be adapted,
not so much to those who desire to attain a practical proficiency, as to those
who seck that portion of information respecting such matters which is generally
expected from well-educated persons. An interest will be imparted to what is
abstract by copious illustrations, and the sciences will be rendered attractive, by
treating them with reference to the most familiar objects and occurrences.
The unwieldly bulk of Encyclopædias, not less than the abstruse discussions
which they contain, has hitherto consigned them to the library, as works of only
occasional reference. The present work, from its portable form and popular style,
will claim a place in the drawing-room and the boudoir. Forming in itself a
Complete Library, affording an extensive and infinitely varied store of instruction
and amusement, presenting just so much on every subject as those not professionally
engaged in it require, convenient in size, attractive in form, elegant
in illustrations, and most moderate in expense, the “Cabinet Cyclopædia” will,
it is hoped, be found an object of paramount interest in every family.
To the heads of schools and all places of public education the proprietors trust
that this work will particularly recommend itself.
It seems scarcely necessary to add, that nothing will be admitted into the
pages of the “Cabinet Cyclopædia” which can have the most remote tendency
to offend public or private morals. To enforce the cultivation of religion and
the practice of virtue should be a principal object with all who undertake to
inform the public mind; but with the views just explained, the conductor of this
work feels these considerations more especially pressed upon his attention.
Parents and guardians may, therefore, rest assured that they will never find it
necessary to place a volume of the “Cabinet” beyond the reach of their children
or pupils.
