Quid (encyclopedia)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Quid | |
| Author | ? |
|---|---|
| Country |  France |
| Language | French |
| Publisher | Plon, Éditions Robert Laffont |
| Publication date | 1963-2007 |
Quid is a French encyclopedia, established in 1963 by Dominique Frémy. It was published annually by Éditions Robert Laffont between 1963 and 2007, and is the most popular encyclopedic reference work in France.
The presentation is very compressed, and abbreviations are used extensively in telegraph style. It uses very thin paper to get all the information into one volume. It is published each year in one volume about the size of a large dictionary. The moto of the work is "tout sur tout ... Et tout de suite " (roughly translated as: "All about everything ... and immediately"). Examples of the precise information included in Quid are: a) the use of moustache among Austrian mailmen is forbidden to avoid their being confused with military officers; b) in 1850 there were 1,400,000 inhabitants in Finland, and c) in the West, a woman spends an average of 100 days of her life in ironing.[1]
Contents |
[edit] History
The first edition was published by Plon in the first quarter of 1963 was sold in 20,000 copies. It was a 632-page illustrations-free paperback. In addition to a brief table of contents, the book included a 10-page index. The author introduced it as a “complete, up-to-date, handy and easy-to-read” book. He announced the book would be published yearly. The next edition was published in the third quarter of 1964: the book was made of a cardboard binding and was a little bit larger (824 pages). The first editions were cosigned by Michèle Frémy, Dominique Frémy’s wife. The encyclopedia became larger over the year, reaching the size of a large dictionary. Each edition now needs the contribution of around 12,000 specialists.
In December 2001, a coalition of five Jewish organizations reached an agreement with Quid about its use of the work of Robert Faurisson, a French Holocaust denier. The Jewish groups had filed a motion in a Paris court to force the editors of Quid to remove its reference to Faurisson from future editions. Quid agreed a number of editorial changes regarding its citation of Faurisson's statements and claims, from all future print editions and from its Internet site, but the settlement allow to present Faurisson's work in a more general description of Holocaust revisionism.[2]
The 2007 edition of Quid cost €32; its 2,176 pages contained 2,500,000 items about 650 topics. It sold only about 100,000 copies, compared to more than 400,000 in the 1990s. In February 2008, the 2008 edition was canceled by the publisher, Robert Laffont, which said that print encyclopedias can no longer compete with the free information available on the internet. Frémy, the founder of Quid, said that he would find another publisher and intended to publish a 2009 edition for Christmas 2009.[1]
[edit] Internet
For 10 years Quid has also been on the Internet. In addition to the complete current issue, it offers a daily news website, a world atlas with maps and 6,000 lexical entries on the 36,380 French communes with details about their history, geography, tourist attractions and economic life.
[edit] Special editions
| Title | Subject |
|---|---|
| Grand Quid illustré (18 volumes) | Illustrations |
| Quid de mai 68 | mai 68 |
| Quid de Proust | Marcel Proust |
| Quid de Maupassant | Guy de Maupassant |
| Quid d'Alexandre Dumas | Alexandre Dumas |
| Quid de la Tour Eiffel | Eiffel Tower |
| Quid des Présidents de la République | Presidents of France |
| Quid : le multimédia (colour supplement with Quid 1996) | Multimedia |
| Quid Monde : CD-Rom sur les états du monde with Quid 1997 | List of countries |
[edit] References
- ^ a b John Lichfield, John Lichfield, "France's favourite encyclopaedia falls victim to Wikipedia", Independent, 20 February 2008
- ^ "Against Faurisson in the Quid Encyclopedia", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, New York, 26 December 2001
[edit] External links
- Official website (French)
