The New Werner Twentieth Century Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Standard Work of Reference in Art, Literature, Science, History, Geography, Commerce, Biography, Discovery and Invention... with New American Supplement, Complete in Thirty Volumes

The New Werner Twentieth Century Edition was produced in the early 1900s by the Werner Company of Akron, Ohio. It was designed to capitalize on the success of the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica by combining the original British content with a comprehensive New American Supplement. This effort aimed to provide a localized, updated resource for an American public increasingly interested in domestic progress and international commerce at the dawn of the new century.

The physical production of these thirty volumes was characterized by a heavy, ornate aesthetic typical of the era's subscription-based reference sets, often bound in leather or sturdy cloth to signal scholarly authority. While the editorial quality was initially praised for its breadth, it became the subject of complex legal disputes regarding copyright and reproduction rights between the American publishers and the British holders of the Britannica trademark. Consequently, it remains a distinct artifact of the aggressive competition in the early American encyclopedic market.