James Tytler (17 December 1745[1] – 11 January 1804) was a Scottish apothecary and the editor of the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Tytler became the first person in Britain to fly by ascending in a hot air balloon (1784).
A group of historiographers wrote about him:
A social outcast, Tytler did much hack work for low pay and rarely if ever emerged from poverty. But ... he deserves to be remembered as a man of many talents – as a political and religious controversialist, scholar, journalist, poet, song writer, musician, balloonist, pharmacist, surgeon and printer. In addition ... he was an outstanding encyclopedist whose editorship of the second edition earns him a notable place in the history of encyclopedias.
— Hardesty Doig, Kafker, Loveland, Trinkle, 2009[2]
- ^ Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, vol. 5, (1925, p. 397); biography, Balloon Tytler by Sir James Fergusson of Kilkerran (1972, p. 18). Kathleen Hardesty Doig, Frank A. Kafker, Jeff Loveland and Dennis A. Trinkle: James Tytler's edition (1777–1784): a vast expansion and improvement. In: Frank A. Kafker, Jeff Loveland (ed.): The Early Britannica (1768–1803): the growth of an outstanding encyclopedia. Voltaire Foundation, Oxford 2009, pp. 69–155, here 71. The book "The Great EB, the story of Encyclopædia Britannica," by Herman Kogan, states that he was 29 when he began work for Britannica, which puts his year of birth at or around 1748
- ^ Kathleen Hardesty Doig, Frank A. Kafker, Jeff Loveland and Dennis A. Trinkle: James Tytler's edition (1777–1784): a vast expansion and improvement. In: Frank A. Kafker, Jeff Loveland (ed.): The Early Britannica (1768–1803): the growth of an outstanding encyclopedia. Voltaire Foundation, Oxford 2009, pp. 69–155, here p. 155.