Oldest Living Reference Book
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
If there’s an older surviving reference work than The Annual Register, I haven’t come across it. Founded by Edmund Burke in 1758 (and written and edited by him through 1765), The Annual Register is celebrating “250 years of uninterrupted publication” with the 2009 edition. For the anniversary volume, there is a speculative preface to the 300th, 2059 edition (the population of Antartica is three-to-four million, thanks in part to melting polar ice; “the famous nanotube Space elevator has been built”; although people are expected to work until they are 90 years old in order to qualify for a pension, “holding down a full time job at 100 is still quite remarkable”). The 2009 Annual Register is being published by ProQuest along with a special edition of the very first volume, and the entire archive is available online.
