Bibliophilia: Encyclopedias
I don't know about you, but I have fond memories of encyclopedia sets from a very early age. Mom and Dad had a set of World Book encyclopedias - long gone, I'm afraid. My grandmother, who I spent quite a lot of time with as a child, had a Children's Book set that may have dated to when my mother, or at least my aunts and uncles, were young. I read them. Just.. picked them up and started reading through. The First Reader and I started comparing notes as I was photographing the book for today's art book post.
I don't know exactly where or when I picked this book up. It's a solo book. Yes, it is volume VI, and no, I have no intentions of trying to find the rest of the set!
One of the big regrets I have concerning library management in my life is letting go of the Encylopedia Brittanica set my Dad brought home to me about a decade ago. It was the 1885 edition. Sure, it was missing a volume. But what a piece of history!
End papers can be beautiful, too. This one looks like it was printed from the same pattern as a calico fabric.
Over a century has passed since this rather florid frontspiece was printed.
You can tell what the big, exciting news was that year! And now we know so much more about radium... it was huge, and then it was tragic.
I love the little illustrations.
And now for an experiment...
The First Reader and I were sitting on the porch chatting about reading the encyclopedia. We both did, as young readers. He read at school, I read when it was too wet and rainy to get outdoors (and Grandma living in the PNW meant that happened often!). We both discovered that we have fond memories of these treasure-troves of information. Back in the day, when they were sold by subscription, and you got a book a month. Or you took out a loan (imagine! Going into debt for books! We live in a weird and wonderful age, but there was a time when information and education was worth so much more... the equivalent of the college degree, I suppose now) to get your set. That was the golden age of books as physical objects. Many of those sets were on display in the public area of the house, and most were never read. Unless you were odd little people, like us.
So we got to talking on the porch, as we often do. And I got a wild hair, and pulled out my recorder. So here you have the first video of what I am going to continue as a series of interviews... join us on the porch for a chat about books.