The Children's Encyclopædia was an encyclopædia originated by Arthur Mee, and published by the Educational Book Company, a subsidiary of Amalgamated Press of London. It was published from 1908 to 1964, in a variety of formats. Walter M. Jackson's company Grolier acquired the rights to publish it in the U.S. under the name The Book of Knowledge (1910). While the encyclopedia itself did not carry any copyright or publishing dates, clues are present in the title used and the colour and design on the cover as to the approximate age of a complete collection.
The initial release of The Children's Encyclopædia featured the spelling "Encyclopædia" and was initially an 8 volume collection, bound in brown. All other revisions used the spelling "Encyclopedia" and were a 10 volume collection.
This work is the 6th. volume of the 10 volume set.
The Children's Encyclopædia sold 800,000 copies in 12 editions before being extensively revised in the early 1920s. The new 59-part, 7,412-page, 10-volume series debuted in October 1922 as The Children's Encyclopedia, the digraph having been dropped, and went through 14 editions by 1946 under the imprint of The Educational Book Co. Translations appeared in France, Italy, Spain and China. New editions of the encyclopedia continued after Mee's death in 1943; the final, much revised, edition, still entitled Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia, appeared in 1964.
1920 versions have blue binding. By the 1940s the binding is brown in colour, and displays a flaming torch on each book's spine. By the 1950s, the binding is red. There is also at least one green bound version that dates from the 1920s. One edition with a red binding and art deco patterning on the spine dates to the mid 1930s.