Orr's Circle of the Sciences was a scientific encyclopedia of the 1850s, published in London by William Somerville Orr.

William S. Orr & Co. was a publisher in Paternoster Row, London. It put out the British Cyclopædia in ten volumes of the 1830s.^[1] It also was in business selling engravings (for example the Kenny Meadows illustrations to Shakespeare),^[2] and maps, such as a mid-century Cab Fare and Guide Map of London (c. 1853).^[3]

The firm was a general commercial publisher, with a specialist area of natural history, and also published periodicals.^[4] It was innovative in its use of wood engraving, in its 1838 edition of Paul et Virginie.^[5] In children's literature, it published Christoph von Schmid's Basket of Flowers in an English translation of 1848, in partnership with J. B. Müller of Stuttgart.^[6]

Orr himself was a publishers' agent from the 1830s, and was a close associate of Robert and William Chambers.^[7] He printed a London edition of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal by mid-1832.^[8] The arrangement used stereotype plates, and brought the circulation up to 50,000.^[9] By 1845 the circulation was declining from its peak, and Orr wrote to Chambers explaining that the market was changing.^[10] In 1846 Chambers terminated the arrangement with Orr.^[11]

Punch magazine, set up in 1841, brought in Orr to help with distribution to booksellers and news agents.^[12] Orr died in 1873.^[13]

Orr's Circle of the Sciences was announced first as a part publication, a series in weekly parts, price 2d. beginning 5 January 1854.^[14] The series editor was John Stevenson Bushnan, who also wrote the introductory section of the first volume.^[15]