I was pleased and intrigued to find out Sir Terry collected Victorian reference texts, but now I know where he's picked up some "local color" for his books. 
Although I've only found references to a handful of the many titles he's collected, I too have been known to pick up the odd reference book over the years. I thought it might be interesting to start a thread about the unusual titles I've come across and give others the opportunity to do the same. To be fair, mine aren't just limited to the 19th century.
I've had Collier's Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information since high school. It has articles on such topics as: Bookkeeping, Riding a Bicycle, How to Swim, and Drowning, to name a few.
At one of the used book stores I haunt, I ran into a title called We Japanese. My edition was printed in 1951. It was written for the Fujiya Hotel as a guide to Japanese culture and is formatted much like an encyclopedia to give a general overview of things like art, holidays, ceremonies, etc. The formatting and print are very evocative of a 19th century format, though.
A few more titles from my modest collection:
The Century Cyclopedia of Names in three volumes
Pseudonyms of Authors; including Anonyms and Initialisms
The Reader's Encyclopedia
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
edited for grammar
Although I've only found references to a handful of the many titles he's collected, I too have been known to pick up the odd reference book over the years. I thought it might be interesting to start a thread about the unusual titles I've come across and give others the opportunity to do the same. To be fair, mine aren't just limited to the 19th century. I've had Collier's Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information since high school. It has articles on such topics as: Bookkeeping, Riding a Bicycle, How to Swim, and Drowning, to name a few.
At one of the used book stores I haunt, I ran into a title called We Japanese. My edition was printed in 1951. It was written for the Fujiya Hotel as a guide to Japanese culture and is formatted much like an encyclopedia to give a general overview of things like art, holidays, ceremonies, etc. The formatting and print are very evocative of a 19th century format, though.
A few more titles from my modest collection:
The Century Cyclopedia of Names in three volumes
Pseudonyms of Authors; including Anonyms and Initialisms
The Reader's Encyclopedia
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
edited for grammar
