Enquire Within Upon Everything was a how-to

How-to

A how-to or a how to is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. A how-to is usually meant to help non-experts, may leave out details that are only important to experts, and may also be greatly simplified from an overall discussion of the topic...

 book for domestic life

Household

The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....

, first published in 1856 by Houlston and Sons of Paternoster Square

Paternoster Square

Paternoster Square is an urban development, owned by the Mitsubishi Estate Co., next to St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England. In 1942 the area, which takes its name from Paternoster Row, centre of the London publishing trade, was devastated by aerial bombardment in The Blitz during...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and then continuously reprinted in many new and updated editions as additional information and articles were added. The book was created with the intention of providing encyclopedic information on a topics as diverse as etiquette

Etiquette

Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...

, parlour games, cake

Cake

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...

 recipes, laundry

Laundry

Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...

 tips, holiday

Holiday

A Holiday is a day designated as having special significance for which individuals, a government, or a religious group have deemed that observance is warranted. It is generally an official or unofficial observance of religious, national, or cultural significance, often accompanied by celebrations...

 preparation and first aid

First aid

First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...

:

"Whether You Wish to Model a Flower in Wax;

to Study the Rules of Etiquette;

to Serve a Relish for Breakfast or Supper;

to Plan a Dinner for a Large Party or a Small One;

to Cure a Headache;

to Make a Will;

to Get Married;

to Bury a Relative;

Whatever You May Wish to Do, Make, or to Enjoy,

Provided Your Desire has Relation to the Necessities of Domestic Life,

I Hope You will not Fail to 'Enquire Within.' " (Editor's introduction.)

The early editions of this book contained 3000 short pithy descriptions and was one of a set of 20 books.
The book was a popular addition to the Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 (and later post-Victorian) home. By 1862 the book was sold 196,000 times; by the 89th edition, some 1,180,000 copies had been published. With the release of the 113th edition, this number had risen to over 1,500,000. It ceased to be published around 1976 when it was in its 126th edition.

Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...

 apparently named his precursor of the World Wide Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

, called ENQUIRE

ENQUIRE

ENQUIRE was an early software project written in 1980 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, which was the predecessor to the World Wide Web in 1989.It was a simple hypertext program that had some of the same ideas as the Web and the Semantic Web but was different in several important ways.According to...

, after this work in 1980. He said that its title was suggestive of magic and the book served as a portal to a world of information. He thought it not a perfect analogy for the Web, but a primitive starting point.

External links

• Project Gutenberg version
• Google Books Version (1865 Edition)
• 1930 edition Fully previewed at Amazon. Accessed January 2010
• Interactive web rendering of 1884 edition. Accessed January 2010