Animals in British and French encyclopaedias in the long eighteenth century

Abstract

This survey of the treatment of animals in eighteenth-century British and French encyclopaedias will argue that taxonomy and alphabetical encyclopaedias were compatible, despite the reputation of the latter as being antithetical to traditional hierarchies. At the same time, I will point to an evolution in the treatment of animals in encyclopaedias, one that suggests specialisation on the part of readers. My chronology proposes four overlapping stages: one involving intermixed discourses; one involving neglect; one involving separation of the practical and learned aspects of animals; and one involving treatises on animals and sciences of animals. © 2010 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.