There is little evidence to suggest that the twenty-eight volumes of the first folio edition of the Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers(Explanatory Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Trades) (1751-1772), compiled by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert, circulated widely in British North America. A London translation of Diderot and d'Alembert's preface, The Plan of the French Encyclopaedia (1752), could be ordered from colonial booksellers, however, and the single-volume Select Essays from the Encyclopedy (1772) could be found in subscription libraries. British North American readers might also have encountered excerpts of articles from the Encyclopédie in such publications as Sir William Blackstone's four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (17651769) or in the numbers of The Annual Register. But far more common as reference works were the two volumes of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia: or, a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), of which the original Encyclopédie project was to be a translation, and the three volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; or a Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences (1771), for which the Encyclopédie served as a model.
The improved commercial and cultural relations between France and the new United States, which flowed from their alliance during the American Revolution, made the Encyclopédie more readily available to Americans during and after that conflict. Booksellers in Alexandria, Virginia, and Philadelphia advertised copies for sale, including the less-expensive thirty-nine volume quarto (1771-1781) and octavo (1778-1782) editions. The Société Typographique de Neuchâtel, which was involved in publishing those editions, discussed the prospects of marketing them in America with Benjamin Franklin. In 1781 Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, convinced that state's council to purchase the Encyclopédie for the public's benefit. Jefferson subsequently obtained a copy for personal use, as did James Madison.
Greater interest was expressed in the United States for the successor to Diderot and d'Alembert's compendium, the Encyclopédie méthodique, ou par ordre de matières, par une société de gens de lettres, de savans et des artistes. Unlike the original Encyclopédie, which was arranged alphabetically, the Encyclopédie méthodique (Methodical Encyclopedia, arranged by subjects, by a Society of Men-of-Letters, Scientists and Artist) was a collection of dictionaries written on specific subjects. Ultimately it would consist of 102 parts, or livraisons, which appeared in 166 1/2 volumes of text and 51 volumes of illustrations. Charles Joseph Panckoucke, the editor-in-chief, began publication in 1782, but the series was not completed until 1832. The Encyclopédie méthodique headed the list of books that James Madison, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson recommended for purchase by the Continental Congress in 1783. Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Hopkinson, and James Monroe were among those who subscribed to its volumes, as were the College of William and Mary and the American Philosophical Society. By far the most active American promoter and supporter of theEncyclopédie méthodique was Thomas Jefferson. In 1783 he suggested that Panckoucke appoint an agent in Philadelphia to solicit subscriptions and to supervise the distribution of the respective livraisons in the United States. While no such arrangements were made, Jefferson did take up these tasks informally during his residence in Paris from 1784 to 1789.
Jefferson was also a contributor to the Encyclopédie méthodique, which he described as a "valuable depository of science." Early in 1786 Jean Nicholas Démeunier, the editor of Économie politiqueet diplomatique (1784-1788), one of the dictionaries constituting the Encyclopédie, asked for his advice on drafts of articles on the United States and on a number of the states. Jefferson agreed. In a series of exchanges with Démeunier, he provided documentation for, corrections of, and comments on the Articles of Confederation, the debt of the United States, their population and their codes of law—including the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, of which he was an author. But Jefferson's most extensive and substantive revisions to the "États-unis" (United States) entry concerned the remarks on "l'association des Cincinnati et des dangers de cette institution" (the Society of the Cincinnati and the dangers posed by that organization). In preparing the materials for this section of theÉtats-unis article, Démeunier had relied on the Comte de Mirabeau's Considerations sur l'Ordre de Cincinnatus (1784), a pamphlet that portrayed the Cincinnati as enemies to republican equality. Although Jefferson also opposed the order and hoped for its dissolution, he objected to Démeunier's "unjust and incorrect Philippic" against George Washington and his fellow officers. In its place he provided a more generous construal of the history of the Cincinnati based upon correspondence and conversations with Washington and Lafayette. Démeunier went on to incorporate most of the recommended changes in the final draft.
During the summer of 1786, the "États-unis" article appeared in volume two of Économie politique et diplomatique. His participation notwithstanding, Jefferson expressed strong reservations about some of the article. Yet when Panckoucke also printed copies of the article separately, Jefferson forwarded them to correspondents in Europe and the United States. He also arranged to have the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom excerpted from the Encyclopédie méthodique and distributed to embassies in Paris. Jefferson's collaboration with Démeunier could be seen as well in the article "Virginie," large sections of which were taken verbatim from the former's Observations sur la Virginie (1786), the French edition of his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). The entry "Virginie," published in the fourth and final livraison of Économie politique et diplomatique (1788), also included the text of the new Constitution of the United States. Démeuniersubsequently reprinted all the entries on America in pamphlet form as L'Amérique Indépendante, ou Les différentes constitutions des treize provinces . . . sous le nom d'États-Unis de l'Amérique(Independent America, or the Different Constitutions of the Thirteen Provinces . . . Called the United States of America)(1790). This pamphlet, and the original Encyclopédie articles, would prove to be important resources in the course of debates over constitutional reform in the National Assembly in the early years of the Revolution in France.
Although Jefferson predicted that the Encyclopédie méthodique would be "universally diffused" and would "go down to late ages," its impact in the United States was less than he anticipated. The factors of cost, delays in publication and distribution, and the barriers of language combined to limit its circulation and influence. The standard reference collection in the new American nation would be the Encyclopaedia; or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature (1798), based on the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.