John Mills (encyclopedist)

John Mills (* 1717 in England; † 1786-1796 ) was a writer of agricultural textbooks. In addition, he was next to Gottfried Sellius and André Le Breton one of the three initiators of an encyclopedia project, which was later under the direction of Diderot to Encyclopédie.

Biography

John Mills probably lived as a young man already for some time in France. 1741, he was back in London and planned the meantime to travel to Jamaica. Instead, he lived in the years that followed, with his French wife in Paris, in 1742 and 1743 each bore him a child.

1745 John Mills, Gottfried Sellius and André -François Le Breton joined together to translate the 1728 published two-volume Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers into French. Here Mills and Sellius should act as translator while Le Breton as a publisher at that time required publication permission, the so-called privilege requested. A little later it was decided in addition to expand the translation with additional content and expand to a five -volume edition. The privilege was finally officially registered in April 1745.

However, Le Breton was soon dissatisfied with the lack of progress of the translations and threw Mills before, not to rule the French well enough and not to stick to agreed deadlines. It came to an open quarrel between the two, which escalated on August 7, to a palpable conflict in the home of Mills. Then sued for assault and Mills Le Breton tätlichem attack. Le Breton was acquitted and Mills left Paris soon after, probably in the direction of England. The management of the encyclopedia project, as Publisher transferred Le Breton then first the clergyman and mathematician Jean Paul de Gua de Malves and after his retirement Diderot.

In London, Mills then made ​​his name in the 1760s as the author of agricultural literature. His most famous work was the five-volume A New and Complete System of Practical Husbandry ( Full German system of doctrine from the practical field management), which was also translated shortly after its appearance in German. In 1766 he was elected to the Royal Society, he also was a member of the Mannheim Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Agriculture of Paris and Rouen.

Works

Translator

  • Jean -Baptiste Louis Crevier: The History of the Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Constantine, by Mr. Crevier, professor of rhetoric in the college of Beauvais, 1755 ( online copy ).
  • Duhamel du Monceau: A Practical Treatise of Husbandry. J. Whiston and B. White, London 1759.

Author

  • Of Commerce and Luxury
  • An Essay on the Management of Bees. London 1766
  • An Essay on the Weather. London 1770 Attempt by the weather. Engelhart Benjamin Schwickert 1772
  • A New and Complete System of Practical Husbandry. London 1762-1765 (5 volumes) Full of doctrine from the practical field economy. Trattner 1764-1769 (Online Copy: Volume 1, Volume 2, Band3, Volume 4, Volume 5 )
  • A Treatise on Cattle. 1776 ( online copy ( Google) )
Denis Diderot Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences Integrated Authority File
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