Funk & Wagnalls

Funk & Wagnalls is a publisher based in New York City known for its reference works, including an encyclopedia, content from which became a part of Microsoft's "Encarta" digital encyclopedia.

History

Isaac Kaufmann Funk founded the business in 1876 as I.K. Funk & Company. The firm's first publication was the "Metropolitan Pulpit". In 1877, Adam Willis Wagnalls, one of Funk's classmates at Wittenberg College, now Wittenberg University, joined the firm as a partner. The two changed the name of the firm to Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1890.

Prior to 1890, F. & W. published only religious-oriented works. The publication of "The Literary Digest" in 1890 marked a change for the firm to a publisher of general reference dictionaries and encyclopedias. The firm followed in 1894 with its most memorable publication, "The Standard Dictionary of the English Language" ^{(OCLC|19715240)}. 1912 saw the publication of the "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia" ^{(OCLC|1802064)}.

In 1953, the firm began to sell its reference publications through a supermarket continuity marketing campaign, encouraging consumers to include the latest volume of the encyclopedia on their shopping lists.

In 1965, the company, known as Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., was bought by Reader's Digest Association. By 1971, it had been sold again to the firm Dun & Bradstreet. In subsequent years, the publication rights to the company's reference works (aside from the encyclopedia) were acquired by other firms. The publication rights to the encyclopedia were spun off by Dun & Bradstreet in 1983, and were bought up once more in 1990 by K-III Holdings Inc.

In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold Funk & Wagnalls to a group of Funk & Wagnalls executives.

In 1988, the company was purchased by Field Publications, a division of the Field Corporation.

In 1998, as part of the Information division of Primedia Inc. (renamed K-III Holdings), "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia" became the web site "funkandwagnalls.com". This short-lived venture was shut down in 2001. The encyclopedia exists today only as "Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia", an electronic reference provided to educational institutions by the World Almanac Education Group.

Funk & Wagnalls is now part of Weekly Reader, a Reader's Digest Company.

Some content from the encyclopedia became a part of Microsoft's "Encarta" digital encyclopedia.

Popular culture

In the late 1960s through early 1970s, Funk and Wagnalls became part of one of the iconic jokes on the ground-breaking show "Laugh-In", where a frequently-made reference was "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls", a play on the perceived profanity when speaking the word "funk".

Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent sketches frequently made reference to the 'answers' being hidden from Carnac as "kept in a mayonnaise jar outside Funk & Wagnalls' porch since noon today".

In the "South Park" episode "Cancelled", Cartman asks: "What the Funk & Wagnalls are you talkin' about?"

In the "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" 1979 episode "Planet of the Slave Girls," Buck, argues with fellow pilot Major Duke Danton in-flight, "If you call that interference, there's something wrong with your Funk & Wagnalls." Danton, unaware of the centuries-old origin of the statement, replies, "I don't know what you mean by that, but how'd you like to repeat that in the flight hangar?"

Publications

* 1890 – "The Literary Digest"
* 1894 – "The Standard Dictionary of the English Language"
* 1912 – "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia"
* 1927 – "The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories (Ten Volumes)
* 1949 – "Funk & Wagnalls standard handbook of synonyms, antonyms, and prepositions"
* 1949 – "Funk & Wagnalls standard dictionary of folklore, mythology and legend"
* 1958 – "Standard Dictionary of the English Language (International Edition)"
* 1962 – "Poetry handbook; a dictionary of terms"
* 1973 – "Funk & Wagnalls Guide to modern world literature"
* 1983 – "Funk & Wagnalls new encyclopedia"
* 1996 – "Funk & Wagnalls new world encyclopedia" (electronic database)
* 1996 – "Funk & Wagnalls world atlas" [ [http://worldcat.org/search?q=Funk+%26+Wagnalls&=Search&qt=owc_search Worldcat.org search] ]

References