Classic 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Thanks for the great link, Steve! Steve says:
I love this modern world! For years I dreamed of owning the 11th edition of the Britannica, the greatest encyclopedia ever printed ... and now they've put the whole thing online, free! Alas, there are a few problems...but problems or no, it's a giant leap for mankind.
As I expected, they have only the text, not the marvellous maps (of course, I've xeroxed most of the ones that interest me over the years), but the text is in wretched shape ... here's a sample from the Austria-Hungary section:
The empire of Austria... dates back only to 1804, when Francis II., the last of the Holy Roman The flUe emperors, proclaimed himself emperor of Austria as ``~mperor Francis I. His motive in doing so was to guard ~ against the great house of Habsburg being relegated ustr!a. to a position inferior to the parvenus Bonapartes.... [ellipses mine, gibberish theirs]Another important caveat: the articles seem to be arranged under the heading at the top of the printed page, so that (for instance) when you click on AA and scroll down, you won't see "Aaron" -- he's hiding under "AARSSENS, FRANCIS VAN." And when you click on "AUSTRIA-HUNGARY" the text you get starts in the middle of a sentence; you have to go to the previous link, "AUSTRIA, UPPER," to get the start of the article.