The next year both versions of the encyclopedia were reprinted, as well as a third entitled Hill's Practical Library of General Knowledge.
The staff for this edition included Charles Herbert Sylvester, William Francis Rocheleau, Kenneth L. Pray, Anna McCaleb, Helga M. Leburg and Albertus V. Smith.
This was significant, because that same firm published the first edition of the World Book Encyclopedia the same year, and the two shared basically the same staff, including Ellsworth Decatur Foster.
[3] In 1957 it was available in both 10 or 14 volume editions, the latter including "supplementary material on Nature, Recreation, Hobbies and a Study Guide."
[6] While the encyclopedia claimed to have more Nobel Prize winners among its contributors than any other in the world, its reputation was decidedly mixed.
In the late 1960s it was called "one of the better small, family encyclopedias in the United States", by the time of its discontinuation it was considered a substandard compared to its competitors.
[7][8] The sets reputation was also marred by complaints to the Federal Trade Commission about the practices of the encyclopedias vendors.