''Pears' Cyclopaedia'' was a one-volume encyclopaedia published in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Pears' Soap launched the original ''Pears' Shilling Cyclopaedia'' in December 1897, the year of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

's Diamond Jubilee. The first edition contained an English dictionary, a medical dictionary, a gazetteer and atlas, desk information and a compendium of general knowledge entitled "A Mass of Curious and Useful Information and Things that everyone ought to know in Commerce, History, Science, Religion, Literature and the other Topics of Ordinary Conversation".

Background

Each edition traditionally featured an

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

, a gazetteer, a chronological list of events, a list of prominent people (past and present), a miniature encyclopaedia of general information and around a dozen or more other sections on various subjects such as cinema, classical mythology, current events,

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

, ideas and

beliefs A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...

, gardening,

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, etc. The selection of subjects varied slightly over the years, and in later years the world atlas section was dropped, leaving a world and European map inside the front and rear covers and with the Gazetteer limited to the British Isles. From 1953, it was published annually. It was published by Pelham Books from 1959 to 1988, and from then until the final, 2017 edition by

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

. Dr. Chris Cook was the editor from 1977 until the final edition. During the 1950s, Pears' awarded the Silver Pears' Trophy annually to a prominent person for "outstanding British achievement in any field." The 2017–2018 edition, released on 31 August 2017, was subtitled "The Final Edition". The publisher confirmed it is the last: According to '' The Bookseller'', "Statistics from Nielsen BookScan have also revealed volume sales of the work have sharply declined in recent years: the 2001/02 edition sold 24,229 copies whereas the 2016/17 edition sold only 2,854." Over its history, Pears' had "produced sales over 3 million copies by the 1930s and at least as many since". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''s article on the final edition cites total sales over the last decade (2007–2017) of "more than 120,000", adding that, "according to Penguin, it did particularly well in election years". Sam Leith wrote in '' The Times Literary Supplement'': "Now, rendered quite redundant in that respect by Wikipedia (among many, many other things), ''Pears'' is more a curiosity than a serious reference resource." But he continues: "You’re more likely, as I did, to open this ''Cyclopaedia'' to see whether something’s in it than in the hopes of finding out about that something. Which said, on that level it is full of interest. To the very great credit of Dr. Chris Cook, who has been annually (and manually) updating the Cyclopaedia since 1977, it has done a semi-successful job of its madly quixotic project of keeping up with the times." The final page of the final edition summarizes "The Story of Pears, 1897–2017" and concludes:

References

External links

* * Pears' shilling cyclopædia 1898 ed. {{Authority control English-language encyclopedias British encyclopedias Yearbooks Single-volume general reference works Publications established in 1897 19th-century encyclopedias 20th-century encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias 2017 disestablishments in the United Kingdom