PEARS' CYCLOPAEDIA
Hunting around an Op-Shop at some point some many months ago, the
boldly printed cover of a Pears' Cyclopaedia caught my eye. The
spine was adorned with a list of topics of surprising variety for
such a reasonably sized book:
==================
| PEARS' |
| CYCLOPAEDIA |
--.____/\____.--
EVENTS
*
PROMINENT PEOPLE
*
OFFICE COMPENDIUM
*
GAZETTEER
*
ATLAS
*
DICTIONARY
*
SYNONOMS
*
BUSINESS
*
GENERAL INFORMATION
*
CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
*
STUDENT'S COMPENDIUM
*
WIRELESS
*
TOILET
*
COOKERY
*
MEDICAL
*
BABY'S FIRST YEAR
*
GARDENING
*
PHOTOGRAPHY
*
SPORTS
*
POULTRY
*
DOMESTIC PETS
*
READY RECONER
___
/ \
/ \
TRADE| PEARS |MARK
\ /
\___/
After the necessary confirmation that "Toilet" did, in fact, refer
to a chapter entitled "Pears' Dictionary of the Toilet", and
raising the corresponding eyebrow (this, in the thirties,
arrarantly referred to matters of maintaining ones personal
appearance), a quick scan through its pages suggested indeed a
serious attempt had been made to cover all of these topics within
960 pages. Opposite a colour illustration in the typical style of
the Pears soap company, the title page reads:
NEW EDITION
Revised and corrected throughout
PEARS
Cyclopaedia
Forty-first Edition 3,100,000 Copies
Twenty-two Complete Works
of Reference in one Handy
Volume of nearly 1,000 Pages
WITH COLOURED FRONTISPIECE
The Flags of the Empire and
Flags of other Countries in
colours.
_This book is not published
annually, but as demand
requires, usually two or
three times per annum.
Current matter is revised
for each edition._
*=*
A. & F. PEARS LTD.
ISLEWORTH, Near LONDON
FEBURARY 1932.
The flags indeed are quite interesting, the Union Jack still
apparantly flown in Canada, India still a "Flag of the Empire", and
China still under the flag of the nationalist government prior to
the Communist take-over after which it would only see light within
the island of Taiwan. My bet is on the Spanish flag being the next
one to change, with Franco's Nationalists to win the upcoming
Spanish Civil War by the end of the decade, but I'm probably wrong.
The book was bought probably for a couple of dollars (the ladies at
the Op-Shop hadn't priced it yet - I'd mistakenly wondered into
their open store cupboard when I found it!), to join my assortment
of VHS tapes bought elsewhere during my visit to that small country
town (I also bought there the 1996 movie of The Island of Dr.
Moreau - not recommended, it had potential but just didn't quite
reach it towards the end). This morning, as you can probably guess,
I picked it up again and had a proper look though.
Besides the historical note of things like the flags, it's also
facinating to compare with the modern replacement for pretty much
all of its content, which is of course the internet. From cooking
recipes to the (excellently presented full-colour) atlas of the
world, there is no doubt that one could find a modern equivalent of
everything within by giving a few words to ones favourite web
search engine. Indeed I'll no doubt do so still, and very often
come to the natural modern equivalent that is Wikipedia. However
there is some special quality to reading such a book of high
quality that attempts the seemingly impossible task of presenting
all the general information that might have been wanted by an
individual in the 1930s in one convenient volume.
To look up a general subject online one is usually presented with
troves of information, probably from Wikipedia where the quality of
the writing will be varied but usually sufficient to answer one's
question within a few paragraphs. Much more detail awaits the
reader on that topic, and on occasion the more curious reader might
pursue reading it and become, at least for that day, somewhat of an
expert. In the book though, a well written description might
hopefully answer the immediate question with the few words that
could be accomodated within its pages, but after that the curious
mind would be free to see other topics of only vague relation. To
determine the date of some silverware one might turn to "THE LONDON
SILVER MARKS" on page 144, showing symbols dating back to 1697.
Satisfied, a casual turn of the page would reveal the topic of
"POISONS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES" (where one's disinclination towards
the taking of poison sould be even more increased), which is
opposite "PERCENTAGE OF ALCOHOL IN WINES, SPIRITS, ETC." among many
other things. Following pages would teach you of the world's
tallest waterfalls, describe the history and differences between
Farenheit, Centegrade, and Reaumur (a new one on me, apparantly
preferred by Germans at the time) alongside an illustrated
comparison of their measures, and describe the features that
compose the Union Jack.
This is of course what I was doing this morning, and somehow
picking up useful facts that I would never have looked up in the
first place on the web, or maybe even bothered for the sake of my
general interest to read the greater quantity of text likely used
to describe them there. At the same time the descriptions are not
dumbed down either - with even the surprising (but very interesting
to me particularly) inclusion of a "Dictionary of Wireless" going
into serious detail about then-new radio technology. Overall it
entices the curious mind to explore new topics and improve general
knowledge, whereas the web would suck it down into the depths of a
particular rabbit hole.
It turns out that the Pears' Cyclopaedia was published all through
the 20th century, continuing into the internet era. Remarkably it
held on until 2017 when the last edition was published by Penguin
(Pears soap no longer being associated except by the name), with
sales by then having dwindled from three million by the thirties,
to barely three thousand a year:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/01/final-chapter-for-pears-cyclopaedia-after-125-years-in-print
Is it a loss? I don't know. Perhaps I am the only one who would sit
engrossed with it at the end of his bed one morning, delaying
breakfast for want of studying a table of air raids on England
during the first world war. I do think that it should inspire
better ways of compiling and presenting knowledge on the Web, or I
guess on Gopher. To this end I have my own big plans which, among
many others, I hope one day to pursue. Somehow though I think that
books like this will always have their own special effect on people
like me.
- The Free Thinker