July 18, 2025, by Brigitte Nerlich
‘The most important book I ever read’: Francis Crick and children’s encyclopaedias
Matthew Cobb has written a biography of Francis Crick (1916-2004), one of molecular biology’s foremost scholars. It will come out in November. While writing the book, he posted, as he does with every book he writes, little snippets of information on Bluesky along the way – letters, photos, passages of notes he couldn’t quite decipher, etc. This is great as future readers get a glimpse of the book’s creation.
One of these snippets was a picture of a page of The Children’s Encyclopaedia (see featured image) which, under the rubric ‘Wonder’ contained the answer to the question “Where does an apple come from?” This was accompanied by the comment: “An extract from what Crick described as ‘the most important book I ever read’ – Arthur Mee’s THE CHILDREN’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA (he had the 1910 bound edition).”
This set me off on some rambling thoughts in which I weave together some historical context, personal stories, and broader questions about knowledge and curiosity. I’ll start with some information about the Encyclopaedia and its editor.
The Children’s Encyclopaedia and Arthur Mee
As Wikipedia tells us: “The Children’s Encyclopædia was an encyclopaedia originated by Arthur Mee […] published from 1908 to 1964. […] The encyclopaedia was originally published in fortnightly parts between March 1908 and February 1910. Some readers could have bound their collections, but the first eight-volume sets were published in 1910.” That’s the one Crick got.
The part-work/books did not cover subjects like ‘geology’ or ‘biology’ but were thematically ordered under “Wonder” or “Nature” or “The Earth”, but there were also stories about the Bible, poetry, and a section on how to make or do things. “Mee […] took a strong interest in the ‘Book of Wonder’, in which the Wise Man answered questions posed by children.” (wiki) And children, including Francis, have many questions!
In 2019 Matt Turpin, a writer and communicator from Nottingham, wrote a short blog post about Arthur Mee (1875 – 1943), from which I’ll quote extensively. When reading it, I was surprised to find that Mee was born just a short distance away from my house – in Stapleford!
As Turpin points out: “Born into a working class family in 1875, Arthur fell in love with writing at an early age, and took work at the Nottingham Evening Post on leaving school. His skill with words took him to the London journals where he proved a prolific and well-liked journalist.” So far so interesting, especially the local connection – but what about the encyclopaedia?
Turpin goes on to say: “It was his inquiring infant daughter who lit the spark that would change his life –and that of many, many others – through her constant questioning of his infant which he described thus: ‘…there came into her mind the great wonder of the Earth. What does the world mean? And why am I here? Where are all the people who have been and gone? Where does the rose come from? Who holds the stars up there? What is it that seems to talk to me when the world is dark and still?’ And that may well have been that, if it wasn’t for her mother’s exasperated rejoinder: ‘Oh for a book that will answer all the questions!’”.
To deal with such ‘childish’ questions, Mee embarked on editing The Children’s Encyclopaedia which became a huge success and became a bit of a life-saver for Francis’ parents who turned to it when he asked endless questions.
Mee was eventually dubbed “‘Journalist in chief to British youth’. His “informal yet clear writing style standing in contrast to much other educative materials of the time” made the Encyclopaedia “a vital read for young auto-didactics” and “countless life-long educations began with Mee showing that knowledge could be fun, inclusive and best approached with a sense of enthused fascination.” One of these was Francis’.
As pointed out in Robert Olby’s biography of Crick: “Mee claimed that it was ‘the first attempt that has ever been made to tell the whole sum of human knowledge so that a child may understand’ […] Deploring the fact that ‘the art of saying things simply has long been dying out,’ his team of writers had sought to revive this skill and produced a ‘book for grown-ups and children too—to be read by children or to children.’” (p. 28) Francis was one such child revelling in the fun, but perhaps also in how clearly and straightforwardly explanations of scientific and natural phenomena were provided.
Some personal stories
In a biographical memoir of Francis Crick (FRS) provided by The Royal Society, we read that: “As a child […], Francis was curious about the world around him. He was stimulated by Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia, which he devoured avidly” (p. 162).*
Indeed, as he said himself (according to Olby’s biography): “I absorbed great chunks of explanation, reveling in the unexpectedness of it all, judged by the everyday world I saw around me. How marvelous to have discovered such things! It must have been at such an early age that I decided I would be a scientist. But I foresaw one snag. By the time I grew up—and how far away that seemed!—everything would have been discovered. I confided my fears to my mother, who reassured me. ‘Don’t worry, Ducky,’ she said. ‘There will be plenty left for you to find out.’ And there certainly was! Francis grew up and became centrally involved in unravelling the structure of DNA.
Not everybody who reads an encyclopaedia becomes a world-renowned scientist, but reading about Francis and his ‘important book’ reminded me of other such magazines, which, in my family, were perhaps also ‘important books’.
My father owned every part of something called Lux Lesebogen (Bibliothek der Unterhaltung und des Wissens – Encyclopaedia of Entertainment and Knowledge) intended to inform ‘educate and entertain’ readers about both the Natur– and the Geisteswissenschaften. After fighting in the second world war and coming back from a prisoner of war camp, only 18 years old, he saved every penny he earned to collect and read this magazine which appeared between 1946 and 1964. It filled a scientific and cultural knowledge vacuum left during the war, as well as a general hunger for knowledge.**
In the 1960s my husband read a serialised magazine called “Understanding Science” which profoundly shaped his thinking and future career in science – and he still has all the parts and will pass them on to our son.
I myself owned some early issues of the French Magasin pittoresque which had been founded by Édouard Charton in 1833 to ‘combat ignorance’ and to alleviate social injustice. For a century, this lavishly illustrated magazine covered new discoveries in ethics, history, art, archaeology, science, industry and travel. I read it not because I was interested in science but because I wanted to find out what inspired Jules Verne in his quest to bring science to children.
The Magasin was full of pictures, some by famous illustrators, such as Gustave Doré. So I was intrigued to find that the Children’s Encyclopaedia contained illustrations by, for example, Arthur Rackham, who illustrated amongst many others Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (It would be great to study how the illustrations changed over time. Between 1923 and 1946 fourteen new editions of the encyclopaedia were published)
And, or course, we should not forget the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published since 1768, more or less at the same time as one of the icons of enlightenment, the Encyclopédie. After Thony Christie, also known as the ‘Renaissance mathematicus’, read Matthew Cobb’s post on Bluesky with which I started this post, he wrote: “I wouldn’t describe it as the most important book I ever read but I spent many hours with my nose stuck in the Children’s Britannica after we got a copy for Christmas when I was nine, my father was one of the authors.”
Encyclopaedias and the value of knowledge
Francis Crick devoured Mee’s part-work/encyclopaedia “avidly” as a child; my father read a science and knowledge magazine that lifted him out of the misery of war and stilled his hunger for knowledge; my husband read a science magazine as a youngster and was inspired to pursue a career in science; … What about future generations?
Our son read wiki pages (or watched YouTube videos) about things that really interested him. Today’s kids probably use Instagram or TikTok or engage with chatbots. Compared to modern media, old encyclopaedias, like the Children’s Encyclopaedia were almost like a guided tour through knowledge, with someone like Mee deliberately crafting a sense of wonder. Wikipedia is more like being dropped into the middle of an infinite library but maybe lacking that ‘Wise Man answering children’s questions’ element – which might be a good thing. As for TikTok and chatbots, I leave it to others to judge how they work (or not) as tools of informal learning.
But what about science and knowledge in general? Unfortunately, we live in a world where science and knowledge are devalued, where ignorance is promoted and where misinformation and disinformation thrive. From 1912 onwards another children’s encyclopaedia, modelled on Mee’s, was published with revisions specific to the United States and it was called the “Book of Knowledge”. Would this still be possible today?
When books are banned and knowledge becomes a luxury, where do children go with their curiosity, questions and wonderings? How do they find ‘important books’ that inspire them and quench their thirst for knowledge? Can children still find time and space today to entertain a ‘sense of enthused fascination’? Have we lost a sense of wonder now that knowledge is instant? And what do parents like Francis’ do who, confronted with a “constant stream of scientific questions, called for an in-house authority, and they found one in the form of Arthur Mee’s wonderful Children’s Encyclopedia” (p. 28 of Olby’s biography)
It would be great if somebody could do a research project about all that…
NOTES
*As Matthew Cobb told me, Crick also mentioned the encyclopaedia, now owned by his son, in his 1988 memoir What Mad Pursuit, but I don’t have access to it.
**A whole other blog post or article or book could be written about the ideological context in which these encyclopaedias and magazines and there various editions over time were written and with what ideological intent. Regarding the Children’s Encyclopaedia, Caleb Saleeby, who supported eugenics, wrote most of the 1908 science articles, although, he doesn’t mention heredity or reproduction (as Matthew Cobb told me). What the encyclopaedia said about ‘races’ is especially objectionable … Herein lies another research project. My father’s collection of Lux Lesebogen was swept away in the 2021 German floods; otherwise, it would have been great to compare The Children’s Encyclopaedia’s pre-war coverage of race/eugenics and related issues with the post-war coverage of such topics in a German equivalent. (Oh, some have been digitalised)
Gail Parker sent me this most amazing story:
“I had the 8 (or was it 10) volume set, bound in oxblood red, kept on a wooden rack on top of the bureau. I loved it. I’d sit reading it, my back against the bureau and one day, the whole lot tipped onto my head. All that weight of knowledge 🤣 gave me concussion”