World Scope Encyclopedia, 12 Vol. 1950

Remember Encyclopedias? When I was in elementary school we had them on carts in the classroom. When we had reports to work on they would be wheeled to the front for us to use as sources. The World Book was the most common, but at home we had the “Golden Book Encyclopedia”, “The Book of Knowledge” (that one was a pain because you had to use the index volume to find anything) and one other whose name escapes me at the moment. It was actually a common thing to pick up a volume and just open it and read about…..anything! They were full of random facts and information about everything. Now we have the internet for that I suppose, but a hot day in the cool basement reading random things from an encyclopedia could be easily passed off as educational and worthwhile when you were avoiding weeding the garden. This set was part of an estate sale I attended for something else and it called out to me. 12 volume set, World Scope Encyclopedia, Unabridged Universal Educational Guild, New York, 1950 “A Treasury of Information on the Sciences, the Arts, Literature, and General Knowledge. Alphabetical organization, NO PAGE NUMBERS! What’s with that! It completely messes up your references and foot notes! Each volume has color picture maps of the continents by Harry Roth inside the front and back covers. There are a handful of glossy full page plates included inside each one as well as many black and white illustrations of art, portraits, maps, machines and places. Speaking of names, ever hear of Namaqualand? “The name applied to a region of Southwestern Africa. It consists of two portions, Little Namaqualand and Great Namaqualand. The former is situated south of the Orange River and now forms a part of Cape Colony, while the latter extends from the Orange River to Walfisch Bay. In 1884 the latter became a part of German Southwest Africa. The original inhabitants of this region are known as Namaquans, a Hottentot tribe governed by petty chiefs. They subsist largely by following a pastoral life. At present (in 1950) there are about 50,000 of these people.” As you can see archaic knowledge abounds in these books. Isn’t it interesting to see how much things have changed over the past 75 years? I have all 12 volumes, sold individually, but if you want the whole thing send me a message and you will get a good discount. It will be heavy to ship, but USPS Media Mail is surprisingly affordable. I - A - Aviary II - Aviation - Cannae (ancient town in Italy where Hannibal won a victory over the Romans on Aug. 2, 216 BC) III - Cannel Coal - Dahomey (colony in French West Africa) IV - Dairying - Fiscal Year V - Fischer (German physician 1852-1919) - Herod Antipas (the one in the New Testament) VI - Herodotus - Lea, Homer (1876-1912, active in China during Boxer Rebellion) VII- Lea, Luke (American journalist, soldier, adventurer) - Morphology (in biology) VIII - Morphology (in language) - Pension IX - Pentagon - Romney, George (1734-1802, English painter) X. - Romulo, Carlos (1899 - alive in 1950 Phillippine official, soldier, writer) - Stewart, William (1827-1909 New York lawyer and legislator) XI. - Stickleback (fish) - Vandevelde (17th c. Dutch painters) XII - Van Dieman’s Land - Zygote So how many of these did you recognize? What is fun with this set is the amount of information absolutely crammed into a single paragraph. It is rare for any reference to go more than three. You could truly read the entirety of this set and learn a lot, especially about the early 20th century and who was considered important at the time. All twelve volumes are in very good condition. The binding is in burgundy leatherette, embossed on the cover and spine, printed in gold with black trim on the spine. There is shelf wear on the top and bottom of the spine, but over all in excellent condition and highly readable. Each volume is 6 1/2” x 9 1/2” and 1 1/2” thick.