Encyclopedias

When I was a kid we had several encyclopedias.  One was an Art Linkletter picture-book encyclopedia.  I recently read that some of its artists also worked on the notorious EC horror comics that prompted a big hysteria in the 1950s.  Their illustration of Macbeth certainly scared me!

We also had the World Illustrated Encycopedia from around 1960.  The entry on communism is pretty funny.  Under the heading "What makes people communists?" they said things like "In rich, peaceful countries a communist is often a person with a sort of mental illness." My brother nicknamed this encyclopedia "the Book of Lies."

And we had an earlier encyclopedia that my mother had had when she was a girl.  It was called The Book of Knowledge and was originally published in Britain around 1910.  We had a Canadian edition published around 1930, substantially the same but adding a few articles on Canadian history and World War I.

The Book of Knowledge is a curious artifact of the Edwardian age.  One of its sections was called "The Book of Golden Deeds," and told stories of heroes for kids to look up to, like Father Damien.  There were children's stories with some illustrations by famous artists like Arthur Rackham.  And there was a section called "The Book of Wonder," answering children's questions like "Did any of the Apostles go to Britain?" or "Will the last man die gasping for air?" I think we still have it packed away downstairs.

We also had a 1930s edition of a British encyclopedia called The World Book, which had a whole volume devoted to the Dominions. The entry on flags shows Germany's flag with a swastika!

Today I love to read Wikipedia, where one page will have links to other pages.  When I read one entry I'll often open a link to a second one, then to a third...