Book People Archive

Encylopedic Mystery

I inherited an 1899 encyclopedia ("World Wide Encylopedia and
Gazetteer"), published in 1899 by the Christian Herald and Werner House.
It consists of 12 volumes.

Here's the mystery, Volumes I-VIII cover A-ZYMOTIC, Volumes IX-XII cover
AACHEN-ZYLONITE. That's right, the alphabet starts over in the middle of
the series. 

As near as I can tell there are very few articles in common. Those that
do show up in both are extremely short in the first set, much longer in
the second. But most articles are not duplicated.

Bindings, print style and copyright pages are all the same. Can anyone
explain what was going on back then? I've been pondering it for years
and have never found any pattern to explain which articles are in which
section!

It's a fascinating thing by the way. Subjects like the invention of the
"safety match" have huge articles. Fire engines get a big write up.
Other subjects I expect to find are nowhere to be seen, or I just don't
know the correct 19th Century term to find them under. The telegraph
gets only a column or so. I also suspect some 19th C. personalities are
more famous today than in 1899 (Charles Babbage for example).

Thanks!

Charles Hall
Raleigh, NC