Edited by the Rev. James Wood, this compact encyclopaedia set out to give ordinary readers, at a cheap price, the kind of information found in the great multi-volume sets. Short alphabetical entries cover biography, geography, history, literature and religion, often with a frank editorial opinion attached — Stonewall Jackson is judged ‘a man of the Cromwell stamp’.
A browsable snapshot of what an educated reader around 1900 was expected to know, and how they were expected to think about it. Download the free EPUB.