●第１回配本解説： 高山宏
●第２回配本解説：　窪田憲子

「情報」ではない「知識」の気宇壮大…『ハリー・ポッター』全巻邦訳なる2008年。　
ちょうど百年前の子供たちが家庭で、学校で何を考えて暮らしていたものか知るに絶好の出版物が、
なんとも絶好のタイミングで復刻される。　・・・　高山宏

20世紀初頭に編集者アーサー・ミーが発案し隔週刊で創刊、英国家庭向けに大成功した子ども百科が復刻されます。図解百科I See Allを始め、子ども向け教育、参考書を数多く企画、編集したミーの代表作で、ヴィクトリア朝末期の英国でもっとも広く予約購読された出版物の一つと言われています。その成功は直ちに大西洋を渡り、アメリカではグロリア社が本書を底本にThe Book of Knowledgeというアメリカ児童百科を刊行し、中産家庭に広く訪問販売します。

日本においても、大正時代に新教育運動を主導し成城学校を創設した沢柳政太郎が、後に玉川学園を創立する小原國芳への外遊土産として英国より本書を持ち帰り、この百科事典をもとに1932年小原が『玉川児童百科』全30巻を出版したことが知られています。

I See All同様、本書においてもミーの独創性はいかんなく発揮されており、従来のA-Z式の記事の配列をまったく用いず、子どものための知識を〈Earth and Its Neighbours〉、〈Men and Women〉、〈Ourselves〉、〈Things to Make & Do〉など19の大項目に分類、各巻中でそれぞれの項目をさらに数件のテーマにわけて解説するという斬新きわまる編集方針が採られています。（各項目の明細は次頁以降を参照ください。）　また、ミーが得意とする図版、イラストを多く用いた視覚的な編集方針も全巻を貫いており、いわゆる「引く」ための事典でなく、まさに「読み、見る」ことにより知識を身に着けさせることを目的とした、「本」としての百科事典の真髄がこの事典の魅力でしょう。

出版後一世紀を経た今日、本書は英米児童文学・文化史研究の貴重な資料であると同時に、新たな知や文化の枠組みを形作り、それにより20世紀の新しい精神で子どもたちを育てようとした英国出版文化の記念碑的鴻業とも言えます。英米文化、比較文化の広範な研究の資料としてどうぞご利用ください。

推薦文　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　高山　宏

グローバルに知識が検索できるこんな便利な時代が来るなどと誰が想像しただろう。コンピュータがうまく使いこなせる能力さえあれば史上最強の百科事典を持っていることになる。しかし検索画面に次々現れるものはその限りでは、知識と呼ばれるものが断片として現れては消える＜情報＞でしかない。そういう＜情報＞をいかに集め、いかに編んで知識と化すか、たとえばそれが今大学の試験制度を悩ませて話題の「コピペ」レポート是か非かの問題であったりする。
まさしく知識の＜情報化＞が時代の問題となったヴィクトリア朝末期の英国にあって、あくまで一人の子供の血肉となり、その子供が大人になった時、教養と呼べるものと化す知識とはどういうものかの具体的コンテンツをさし示した天才的編集者アーサー・ミーの画期的百科、Children’s Encyclopedia (1908-10) が待望の復刻をみる。絵引き百科I See All で編集の異才をうたわれるミー渾身の、なにしろアルファベット順でつくられていない（！）百科事典の傑作だ。子供の理想的な認知発達を言うピアジェその他、現代の教育心理学のエッセンスを先取りした瞠目の編集工学がそこにある。
アルファベット順の編集というものが検索に至便な代りに、世界の構造をいかに全体的有機的に伝える書物本来のあり方を歪めてきたものか。それを我々は他のどこよりもこの近代最初の児童百科の独創的きわまる目次構成案に見て、我々が何を得た代りに何を喪ったか、戦慄をもって味わい知ることになるだろう。が、戦慄した後はあくまで楽しい。「ペットはどう飼うの」から、「真理って何」まで、子供に尋ねられて困っているパパやママのために、ありとあらゆるテーマが、これ以上なく易しいレベルで、これ以上平易ということのあり得ない言葉で説かれるリーダブルで楽しいエッセイの塊は＜情報＞べったりの今時、一寸他には得がたいからである。
『ハリー・ポッター』全巻邦訳なる2008年。ちょうど百年前の子供たちが家庭で、学校で何を考えて暮らしていたものか知るに絶好の出版物が、なんとも絶好のタイミングで復刻される。ユーリカ・プレスの戦略的大英断は近来の欣快事である。

■Contents of Volume 1 -5

Group 1: Earth and Its Neighbours
The Big Ball We Live On / How the Earth was Made / Three Ways the Earth Moves / Inside the Wonderful Ball / How Fire and Water Made the World / The Foundation Stones of Britain / The World of the Cambrian Age / The World of the Silurian Age / The World in the Devonian Age / The Carboniferous Age / The World in the Triassic Age / The World in the Jurassic Age / The World in the Cretaceous Age / The World in the Eocene Age / The Pliocene and the Pleistocene / The Stony Book of Nature / The Face of the Earth / Mountains and Glaciers / Forests, Woods, and Deserts / The Rivers and the Seas / What Climate Means to Us / Why the Seasons Come and Go / The Rain that Raineth Every Day / The Immensity of the Universe / The Sun and His Power / The Inner Planets / The Outer Planets / Earth's Only Child / Fragments of the Solar System

Group 2: Men and Women
The First Flying Men / The Kings of Music / The Famous Men of Venice / The Fairy-Story People / Cromwell and His Men / The French Revolutionists / Men Who Made the World Known / The Creators of Liberty / The Discoverers of America/ Famous Missionaries / The Writers of the Songs / Famous Monks / The Men Who Gave Us Printing / Lincoln and Washington / The Writers of the Hymns / The Men Who Made the Microscope / Walter Scott and Charles Dickens / British Statesmen / Joan and Saint Louis / The Men who Found Australia / The First Great Doctors / Conquerors of Disease / The Men who Made the Railway / The Caesars / The Explorers of Africa / The Great Greeks / Slavery and Its Conquerors / The Wireless Men / The First Astronomers / The Men who Mapped the Skies

Group 3: Stories

Group 4: Animal Life
Nature's Thousands of Children / The Animals Most Like Men / Bats and Their Friends / Big Cats and Little Cats / The Wild Dogs / The Friendly Dogs / The Bears and Their Cousins / The Great Sea Hunters / Gnawers and Burrower / The Great Cattle Family / The Sheep and Goats / The Swift Runners / The Camels / Pigs and Hippos / The Tapir and the Rhino / The Horse Family / The Hyrax and the Elephant / The Whales and their Cousins / Living Fossils / The Kangaroos / Animals that Lay Eggs / Birds Begin to Fly / The Crow and His Family / Starlings, Finches, and Buntings / The Larks and Their Friends / Warblers, Babblers, and Chatterers / Peckers, Humming-Birds, and Hornbills / The Cuckoos / The Parrots and the Owls / The Day Birds of Prey

Group 5: History
Man Sets Out on a Journey / Man Builds Himself a House / Man Feels His Way to Power / The Wondering Egyptian / Man Begins to Think of God / A Civilisation Wiped Out / The Man Who Drew the First Map / Pythagoras Makes a Guess / The Marvellous Man of Greece / How Two Men Divided Humanity / The Rise of Europe / Greatness that Came in Vain / The Greatest Event in History / An Empire Goes and an Empire Comes / Night Falls on Europe / The ancient East / When the Wholes Earth Feared / The Coming of Mohammed / The roman Comes to Britain / Charlemagne / The Dawn of British History / Heroic Figures of the Dawn / Alfred, the Man of the Dawn / The Wind that Blew from the North / The Castle and the Jew / The Plundering Crusaders / The Days Before Ships / Feudalism and Chivalry / The Grave of Feudalism

Group 6: Familiar Things
Iron and Steel / Cotton / Rope / China / Airways / Bridges / Piano / Wood / Sponge / Engines / Rubber / Paper / Tyres / A Grain of Salt / Picture-story of a Candle / Picture-story of a Brick / 100 Peeps through a Microscope / What Lies Behind your Pen / Roads and Their Makers / Tea and Sugar / Flags of Anglo-Saxondom / Building a House / Building the Ship / Bells / Cutlery / Fifty Peeps Through a Microscope / Nothing Like Leather / The Real Wealth of a Nation / Picture-story of Bookbinding / Railway Engines of Many Lands / Picture-story of a Box of Matches

Group 7: Wonder

Group 8: Art
The Rich Treasure That is Ours / The Cave Men and Their Pictures / The Artists of the Old Empires / A Great Light Shines / The Wonder Men of Florence / Leonardo and Michael Angelo / Raphael and His Time / Venice Rises and Italy Wanes / The Artists of Flanders / The German Painters / The Spaniards and Their Pictures / The Dutch and the Flemings / Rembrandt / The Rise of French Art / French Art After the Revolution / England's Art Begins / England's Golden Age / Romney and Lawrence / The English Landscape Artists / Turner and the Water-Colour Men / The Painters of Yesterday / English Painters of Our Time / The Nature Artists of France / French Art Goes Out of Doors / The Modern Movement in French Art / French Painters of Our Time / The Painters of America / European Artists of 100 Years / Famous Pictures of the World

Group 9: Ourselves
Life that Fills the Earth / The First Living Things / Why Life Left the Sea / Life Makes the Body / The Tiniest Living Things / Our Unseen Friends and Foes / The Very Seat of Life / The Red Cells of the Blood / The White Cells of the Blood / The Heart and What It Does / Life and the Lungs / The Covering of Our Bodies / How Our Bodies Aare Built Up / The Head and the Limbs / The Muscles and their Masters / The Mouth and the Teeth / How to Eat / Food and Its Uses / Nature's Wonderful Food / The Bread by Which We Live / Meat as a Food / Alcohol, the Enemy of Life / The Forest of Nerves within Us / The Mystery of the Brain / The Parts of the Brain / Our Wonderful Glands / The Marvel of Hearing / Our Wonderful Canals / The Voice-Box / The Story of the Eye

Group 10: Plant Life
How Life Goes Round and Round / A Plant's Struggle for Life / Birth, Life, and Death of a Flower / How Plants Work for their Living / How Plants Move and Feel / Plants and their Ancestors / Flowers and Fruits / The Flower's Wonderful Seed-box / Plants and Their Homes / How Plants Came to Be / What Man Can Do with a Plant / How Plants Serve Mankind / The Wonderful Story of Wheat / The Great Cereals / The Great Fruits / Figs and Dates / The Natural History of a Nut / The Forage Plants / Plants of the Breakfast Table / The Useful Vegetables / Plants that Clothe Us / The Medicine Plants / The Spice Plants / Plants that Help our Industries / Queer Plants / Weeds that Creep Over the Earth / The Great Grass Family / The Flowerless Plants / The Life of a Tree / Wild Fruits of the Countryside

Group 11: Countries
Their Great World of Ours / Our Homeland / Seeing Our Homeland from the Sea / Our Great and Little Hills / England in the Long Ago / The Conqueror Comes / The People's Magna Carta / Fighting for the Throne / The Times of the Tudors / The Times of the Stuarts / From the Stuarts to Napoleon / Napoleon and His Conquerors / The wonderful Century / The First World War / Our Country Between the Wars / The Way Our Country Came / The Empire of Eternal Sun / Canada in the Past / Canada in Our Times / Australia, the Wonderful Island / The Australian States / New Zealand / How India Became an Empire / India and its Millions of People / Ireland and Its Story / The British Empire in South Africa / The Flag in Africa / Harbours of Empire / The Rise of the United States

Group 12: Picture Atlas

Group 13: Poetry & Nursery Rhymes

Group 14: Power
The Very Heart of Matter / What is Electricity / The Ocean of Power We Live In / The Electric Current / The Story of the Dynamo/ The Storage Battery / What Electricity Does For Us / What a Magnet Can Do / The Story of Electric Light / The Electric Furnace / The Marvels of Electricity/ The Electric Telegraph / How the World Got the Telegraph / Talking to Anywhere / The Story of the Telephone / The Telephone Exchange/ The Wireless Age / The Wireless Telegraph / The Wireless Telephone / The Electric Eye and Television / The Wonderful Rays / Electric Power in Days to Come / Coal and What It Can Do / Oil and What It Can Do / Picture-story of Oil / Steam and What It Can Do / Gas and What It Can Do / Picture-story of Gas / A Great Ship and What It Can Do / The Power Inside a Ship

Group 15: Literature
The Realms of Gold / Poetry More Precious than Gold / Our First Storytellers / The Greatest English Book / The Book as Sweet as Music / The Poet Who Followed Chaucer / A Shining Splendour Comes / Shakespeare's Poems / Shakespeare at His Height / The Great Epic of Milton / John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe / Poets of a Dull Day / Swift, Addison, and Steele / The Diary Writers / Dr. Johnson and His Friends / Poetry Goes Back to the Country / The Master of the People's Songs / The Tellers of Tales / Wordsworth and His Friends / Byron, Scott, Shelley, and Keats / Scott and His Stories / The Books of Dickens and Thackeray / The Writers of Essays / The Historians / Carlyle and Ruskin / The Fine Fame of Alfred Tennyson / The Fine Story of the Brownings / Great Fiction in Its Full Tide / Story-tellers of Our Time

Group 16: Idea
Movement / Justice / Courage / Truth / Direction / Distance / Space / Number / Faith / Eternity / Vision / Beauty / Energy / Virtue / Prudence / Providence / Hope / Nature / Duty / Pax / Patience / Authority / Success / Knowledge / Prayer / Gratitude / Patriotism / Optimism / Instinct / Imagination

Group 17: The Bible
The Way Our Bible Came / The Bible Story of Creation / The Story of Cain and Abel / The First Days of Evil / Abraham, the Friend of God / Issac and His Sons / Jacob the Wanderer / Joseph and His Brethren / The Rise of Moses / The Great March in the Desert / Israel Marches Forward / Samson the Strong Man / The Story of Ruth and Naomi / Samuel and the Great Change / Saul the Wonderful King / David the Shepherd King / The Hymns of the World / A Selection from the Psalms / The Reign of Solomon / Elijah and King Ahab / The Passing of Elijah / Naaman and the Little Maid / Jonah and the Storm / Isaiah the Poet and Prophet / Daniel and the Kings / How Esther Saved Her People / Between the Old and the New / 100 Scenes in Holy Land / The Coming of Jesus / John the Forerunner

Group 18: Things to Make & Do

Group 19: School Lessons
Reading - Learning to Read / Small Letters / Reading Words / Our Own Pictures / Figures and Shapes / Joining Words / Important Letters / Words and Rhymes / New Words and Stories / Yes and No Games / Long Words / Vowel Sounds / Animal Games / Hush Sounds / New Words and Stories / Silent Letters / More silent Letters / Spelling Games / Difficult Spellings
Writings - Learning to Write / Strokes and Crooks / Big Round O / Rest of the Letters / Letters of Same Size / Tops and Tails / Some Easy Rhymes / Some Queer Marks / Long Words / Writing in Pencil / Writing with Pen and Ink
Arithmetic - Learning to Count / About Nought / A Talk About Three / A Talk About Four / Six New Numbers / Adding Numbers / A Number Book / Adding and Taking Away / Odds and Evens / The Shilling Shop / The Figures on the Clock / Units and Tens / The Multiplication Tables / More and Less Sums / Add and Take Away Numbers / Straight Lines and Squares / Angles and Corners / Curved Shapes / Our Tables Again
Music - The Land of Sound / Another Game with the Piano Fairies / The Road the Fairies Travel On / The Procession in the Treble Clef / The Meeting on the Bass Road / Fairies in the Tulips / The Fairies Inside the Shells / King Semibreve and His Court / The Caps the Fairies Wear / The Homes of the Goblins / The Map the Fairies Made / The Beautiful Land of Sound / The Sleepy Arm Game / Two New Games of the Fairies / The Resting Game of the Fairies / A First Exercise / The Spaces Between the Notes / How to Produce the Fairy Sounds / When the Fairies Want to Rest / Playing Our First Little Piece / Learning a New Exercise / An Exercise for the Fingers / A Song without Words
Drawing
French