Funk & Wagnalls

Being an atlas which today is mostly of nostalgic value. The maps were state-of-the-art in their day and are still very usable. The most inadequate aspect is the gazetteer, which, especially outside of the US, doesn't come close to listing all of the cities and physical features on the maps.

When I was probably five or so, you could get a new volume in this series at the grocery store (like Price Chopper or something?) for a couple bucks with some amount of groceries, maybe every month or so. (Mom, feel free to chime in with the details. I was pretty vague on the whole thing at the time: I was more or less under the impression that the grocery store was specifically for handing these out to me.) I got almost the whole 22ish-volume set; the one or two volumes I was missing caused show more me untold pain and anxiety. I looooooooooved them. This encyclopedia is why I grew up obsessed with things like pangolins.



Which by the way if you were wondering what to get me for Christmas, that's what I want. show less

Each of these 25 booklets presents a brief biography with black and white sketches of the artist and his work. Most of it, however, consists of full-size plates in full color of the artist's notable works. Terrific for an art history class at most levels of education.

This atlas might be useful for railroad buffs because for each map it shows railroads, not roads. The federal highway numbering system began in 1928.
Also interesting are the airline routes shown on the last few pages that indicate if the route carries mail, passengers or express