Everything Explained That Is Explainable!: The Creation of the Encyclopedia Britannica's Celebrated Eleventh Edition 1910-1911

Written by Denis Boyles

Narrated by Corrie James

In Everything Explained that is Unexplainable, Denis Boyles tells the story of the American, entrepreneur, Horace Everett Hooper, a natural-born salesman who found an outdated set of reference books in a warehouse and sold them as quot;one-shelf libraries.quot; His Western Book and Stationary Co. became one of the largest publishers in the Midwest, selling books directly to readers, and forging a business model that was forever after emulated. Hooper and his partner, William Montgomery Jackson, along with Henry Haxton, took an outdated, unmarketable edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica#160;to the then struggling London#160;Times#160;and developed revolutionary new ways to increase the paper's readership, saving both publishing institutions from financial ruin. In a frenzy of editorial effort and fanatical conviction, the eleventh edition was put together as staffers raced against the clock to compile the 40,000 entries by 1,500 contributors. And then we see how it all fell apart, wrecked by a new owner of the Times#160;and a disastrous courtroom fight between Jackson and Hooper-before it miraculously came together at the very last minute, saved by the unlikeliest of rescuers-Cambridge University Press.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jun 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681681719

Denis Boyles

Denis Boyles is the author of African Lives; Man Eaters Motel; Superior, Nebraska; and several books on living a manly life. He lives in rural France, where pigs sniff out thousand-dollar truffles.

Reviews for Everything Explained That Is Explainable!

[pierthinker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is a distinct sub-genre of quirky non-fiction book that looks at some mundane or forgotten subject in either exhaustive detail or from a left-field perspective, or both. These can be throwaway trifles (‘Cats in Kilts’) or they can be little masterpieces that shine a light into historical corners and thus illuminate our own world.Boyles’ book describes how the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the London Times newspaper, both highly respected global brands (as we would say now), were failing financially at the end of the 19th century and were both saved by an injection of American capitalist opportunism and marketing chutzpah.Driven by characters that would seem outrageous in a novel, full of historical detail and telling anecdotes and well illustrated throughout this is an excellent look at the rise of America and the decline of Great Britain through the prism of publishing, public engagement and risk-taking. Boyles has a light, but never less than erudite, touch that reflects the faintly absurd world of the early 20th century intellectual politics of London’s literary and newspaper scene.