Enquire Within upon Everything

The book was created with the intention of providing encyclopedic information on topics as diverse as etiquette, parlour games, cake recipes, laundry tips, holiday preparation, and first aid:{{cite web |url=http://www.geoffsgenealogy.co.uk/articles/enquirewithin.htm |title=Article: Enquire Within Upon Everything |last=Culshaw |first=Geoff |date=September 2004 |work=Shropshire Family History Society Journal |pages=118–120 |access-date=7 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070916151135/http://www.geoffsgenealogy.co.uk/articles/enquirewithin.htm |archive-date=16 September 2007}} To quote from the editor's introduction:

{{blockquote|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."}}

Though not rich in such material, Enquire Within also provided the basics of an English-usage style guide, and also preserved examples of regional dialect usage (which it tended to mock as faulty). Several editions between the 1880s and 1910s provide one of the only surviving records of the rules of the English version of trucco, a somewhat croquet-like form of ground billiards. Though some attempt was made to group related topics, in general the organization was chaotic, and required looking up topics in an index, then finding their numbered sections in the main text.

File:First Web Server.jpg used by Tim Berners-Lee as the first Web server on the World Wide Web, on display at Microcosm, the science museum at CERN]]

The early editions of this book contained 3,000 short pithy descriptions and was one of a set of 20 books.

The book was a popular addition to the Victorian (and later post-Victorian) home. By 1862, the book was sold 196,000 times;{{cite web |title=History of the Web |url= http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |publisher=Oxford Brookes University |access-date=20 November 2010 |date=2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100925204436/http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |archive-date=25 September 2010}} 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 and by 1976 was in its 126th edition.{{cite book |last1=Van de Walle |first1=Étienne |last2=Renne |first2=Elisha P. |title=Regulating Menstruation: Beliefs, Practices, Interpretations |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=2001 |pages=128 |isbn=0-226-84744-6 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BD6zP-bsnpQC&pg=PA67}} Modernised versions were still in print as late as 1994.{{cite news |last=Picardie |first=Justine |title=Etcetera / Home Thoughts |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/etcetera-home-thoughts-1370709.html |work=The Independent |access-date=30 January 2017}}{{cite web |title=Enquire Within upon Everything: The Ultimate Problem-solver (Helicon General Encyclopedias) |url= https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21698627830&searchurl=sts%3Dt%26tn%3DEnquire%2BWithin%2BUpon%2BEverything%26sortby%3D17 |work=AbeBooks.com |access-date=30 January 2017}} Unauthorized reproductions of the first and some subsequent editions, without credit to the original editor and publisher, were made in United States by the New York publisher Garret, Dick & Fitzgerald, under the title Inquire Within for Anything You Want to Know. Later official editions (some time after 1894) were published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton Kent & Co., also of London.

Agatha Christie used Enquire Within upon Everything as an important clue in the Hercule Poirot detective novel, Hallowe'en Party.

In 1980 Tim Berners-Lee named his precursor of the World Wide Web ENQUIRE after this work.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/interactive/2009/oct/23/internet-arpanet|title=A people's history of the internet: from Arpanet in 1969 to today|author=Simon Jeffery|author2=Chris Fenn|author3=Bobbie Johnson|author4=Elliot Smith|author5=John Coumbe|name-list-style=amp|date=23 October 2009|work=The Guardian|pages=See 1980|access-date=7 January 2010|location=London}}{{cite web |url=http://www.open2.net/ictportal/app/comp_life/future1.htm |title=Enquire Within upon Everything |last=Finkelstein |first=Anthony |date=15 August 2003 |work=ICT Portal |publisher=BBC |access-date=7 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20030621233742/http://www.open2.net/ictportal/app/comp_life/future1.htm |archive-date=June 21, 2003}} A Forbes article quoted Berners-Lee as saying:{{cite news |last1=Press |first1=Gil |title=A Very Short History of the Internet and the Web |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2015/01/02/a-very-short-history-of-the-internet-and-the-web-2/5/#1a950bb133e2 |work=Forbes |access-date=30 January 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203023042/https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2015/01/02/a-very-short-history-of-the-internet-and-the-web-2/5/#1a950bb133e2 |archive-date=3 February 2017 }}

{{blockquote|When I first began tinkering with a software program that eventually gave rise to the idea of the World Wide Web, I named it Enquire, short for "Enquire Within upon Everything", a musty old book of Victorian advice I noticed as a child in my parents' house outside London. With its title suggestive of magic, the book served as a portal to a world of information, everything from how to remove clothing stains to tips on investing money.}}

{{Reflist|2}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/work?id=olbp79127 Enquire Within Upon Everything] at The Online Books Page database, University of Pennsylvania Library
• {{librivox book | title=Enquire Within upon Everything}}
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinup00evergoog 1856, 1st edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=cW5FAQAAMAAJ 1856, 1st edition], scan of 1978 facsimile reprint, via Google Books
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=4JNEAQAAMAAJ 1856, 1st edition], US Inquire Within version, via Google Books
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinupo00phil_0 1858, 9th edition], via Internet Archive
• [https://archive.org/details/b21527829/page/n2 1863, 19th edition], via Internet Archive
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinupo00phil_1/page/n5 1865, 26th edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinup00unkngoog 1865, 27th edition] via Google Books
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinupo00phil 1870, 37th edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001991893q;view=1up;seq=1 1871, 41st edition] via Hathi Trust (only downloadable one page at a time, and access may be limited to US IP addresses)
• [https://archive.org/details/b21539431 1872, 44th edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinupo00philuoft/page/n4 1884, 69th edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://archive.org/details/b21498933 1886, 74th edition] via Internet Archive
• [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10766 1894, 89th edition] via Project Gutenberg (only the HTML copy is complete, the e-book versions are just the first 1/3)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=HapbAAAAMAAJ 1903, 100th edition] via Google Books
• [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433000982490;view=1up;seq=1 1916, 110th edition] via Hathi Trust (only downloadable one page at a time, and access may be limited to US IP addresses)

{{Authority control}}

Category:1856 non-fiction books

Category:English-language encyclopedias

Category:Style guides for British English

Category:Single-volume general reference works

Category:Publications established in 1856

Category:Annual publications