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I am writing about Joseph Haydn who wrote the original book. He died in 1856 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery. He left a wife and three children. He also wrote the Book of Dignities. Queen Victoria granted him a pension of £25 a year which he did not live to enjoy. There are many letters in newspapers of the time saying that a man who had laboured for so long should have been treated better. The great and the good all donated enough money for his wife to buy a small stationers shop to support the family.

I have a copy of the 22nd Edition and would commend it to anyone who loves English Victoriana. The frontspiece proclaims: "Containing the History of the World to the Autumn of 1898". Only a Victorian Bibliophile could be so precise and so un-selfconcious! How could you not want a book with such unabashed pretensions!

I have a first Ed. of this most fascinating book. One might think the information is useless but, let us not forget that"knowledge is Power". The world has already lost so much knowledge already which has created havoc and disorder in mainstream society. The teachers of today don't even teach reasoning skills anymore to the children of tomorrow. I hope that in my perseverance in preserving this book for future generations, maybe there can be hope for a new collective state of being united by the missing pieces of mans thought! It's a dictionary, like all dictionaries we consult for further understanding. It's not a romance novel.. It simpley is what it is?? A consultant of knowledge and a master piece of the collective intellect!

I love this book! I leave it on my coffee table and anytime we have guest over it becomes a conversation piece.

Great book to have and bore your familiy and friends with. As you say, you can read it for hours, or so I believe, and learn absolutely nothing, apart from the method of execution of poisoners. I've just got the 21st edition and am looking for another. I also have a battered copy of Townsend's Manual of Dates published in 1877. the entry for Corpulence states - In Sparta, citizens who grew too fat were soundly whipped. ..........was threatened with perpetual banishment if he did not reduce his body within reasonable dimensions. Now there is a topic for future debate.