About the Book

William B. Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes (1872) promised over 6,400 answers 'in plain language, applicable to almost every possible industrial and domestic requirement' — and delivered them, numbered, so one receipt could point to another.

It is the household internet of its century: how to silver a mirror, make ginger beer, tan a skin, bronze iron, dye wool, exterminate vermin, build fireworks, preserve anatomical specimens, and clean almost anything.

The book opens by teaching its own vocabulary — annealing, distillation, elutriation, the sand bath — then turns you loose. Its first instruction remains good advice: when searching for anything, always refer to the index.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1872 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.