THE dictionary's genesis was a parting shot of one of the century's greatest survivors, Harold Macmillan. In 1980 the former British prime minister and head of the family publishing firm was invited to deliver a lecture at Yale University to mark the publication of the fifth edition of the Grove Dictionary Of Music, which Macmillan had published since its one-volume inception in 1878.
Byam Shaw, then managing director, went with him. Although aged 90 and blind, Macmillan had everyone spellbound. Afterwards, while the old man refuelled with his hosts, Byam Shaw was despatched to admire Yale's new "prize", the great collection of British art which millionaire financier Paul Mellon had spirited away from its home shores. Naturally, when Macmillan's lieutenant returned, the talk turned to art.
The new Grove, $2,000 for 20 volumes of brand new scholarship, would be essential buying, both for institutions and private buyers. The proceeds, advised the wily old politician, should be "put into something that will take a long time and will sell in the US". He had long ceased to trust his homeland's attitude to intellectual ownership. Indeed he had ceased to trust just about anyone. "When I am dead and you've spent five million pounds of my money, my heirs will be ill-disposed to sell the family company too quickly.
Art was the most obvious field for a similar project. Unlike music, which has been a subject of study for scholars for hundreds of years, art history is a comparatively new discipline. Before Ruskin, art was enjoyed and collected but not studied. The only encylopaedia in existence, Thieme Becker, was written in German and limited by its format to named artists. Even so it was huge and was in 37 volumes by 1950.
Byam Shaw, who had been in publishing since he was a young man, knew that anyone contemplating an improvement had a Herculean task ahead of them. The new Grove had involved 2,300 different authors and had taken 12 years to compile. A similar dictionary of art, spanning every complexity and contradiction: cities to civilisations, patrons to photographers, not to mention artists, form and style, would be even more cash-and time-consuming. It was something only a private company with no shareholders baying for instant profits could undertake. "Having done Grove," explains Byam Shaw, "we knew we had a talent to organise academic labour. We would retain copyright, because we couldn't possibly pay people proportionately."
From the outset Byam Shaw foresaw major problems. "Firstly we hadn't done it before, secondly there was the whole field of non-Western art, which we had to take seriously." (Indian art alone is given "the best part of 900,000 words" - i.e. 900 pages.) Then there was architecture, which could not be excluded. "In classical art," explains Byam Shaw, "it's often the only thing that's left."
There are four million words devoted to architecture in the dictionary, more than has ever been put in any single publication. Then there was the problem of selection. "In the visual arts it's much more difficult than in music. There is just so much. Leonardo did some wonderful sketches but if you listed them all, it would be a hundred times the size. How do you decide which of Leonardo's works are going to be included? And, that's very expensive, because everyone disagrees."
Art historians the world over were soon hammering on Macmillan's door: "Either because they thought they should for their scholarly community, or because they were making their way up the ladder of scholarship. I doubt many people did it actually for money," he adds. Certainly not Michael Crichton, one of several unlikely authors who, when not writing best-selling thrillers is a collector and "an astute scholar of pop art". Unfortunately, by the time Crichton made his pitch for the pop art overview, it had already been taken. He settled instead on a favourite artist of the genre, Jaspar Johns. "He just wanted to be part of this great enterprise."
The result of this extraordinary coming together of scholarship, with its need to condense and include just about everything, could have been totally indigestible. On the contrary it is a feast: rich in content, light in execution.
Open at any page, any subject and like Alice into the rabbit hole, you cannot help but go deeper and deeper into the magical world that opens up, an expanding kaleidoscope of human imagination. Alice's advice ("What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?") is strictly adhered to. Writing style and vocabulary are designed to interest not intimidate. The combination of generous space and type-size make even the business of reading a pleasure rather than simply a means to an end. If I ever make Desert Island Discs, forget the Bible and Shakespeare. This is the one for me.
"It could have been done in 30 volumes," explains Byam Shaw. "Weight was the deciding thing. I said `Look, most people aren't going to read it in bed, but if you think you can't read it in bed then you will psychologically think this is a library book'."
A poignant point of view. For many years Nicky Byam Shaw has been struggling with cancer that has left him constantly in pain from radiation burns in his spine. He cannot sit. He stands or lies. And to read, he lies.
Sadly, most of us will only be able to read it in a library simply because of the cost £5,800. But if you can afford to, you should have it at home because you should have it around. And, although I can hardly believe I'm writing this, I believe it is cheap at the price.
And are there any regrets? Any lapses? Any if only's? None, says Nicky Byam Shaw, weighing a green leather-bound volume in his right hand. "It would be fair to say I am proud of it."