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Funk & Wagnalls

American, 1875 - 1965

BiographyIn 1965, Funk & Wagnalls Co. was sold to Reader's Digest. In 1971 now Funk and Wagnalls, Incorporated, (as opposed to Company) was sold to Dun & Bradstreet. Dun and Bradstreet retained Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, but other reference works were relinquished to other publishers.

In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., to a group of Funk & Wagnalls executives, who in turn sold it to Field Corporation in 1988.

In 1991, the company was sold to K-III Holdings, Inc, and then in 1993 Funk & Wagnalls Corporation acquired the World Almanac.

In 1998, as part of the Information division of Primedia Inc. (the renamed K-III), the encyclopedia content appeared on the Web site "funkandwagnalls.com". This short-lived venture was shut down in 2001.

Ripplewood Holdings bought Primedia's education division in 1999, which became part of Reader's Digest Association in 2007. In 2009, Funk & Wagnalls was acquired by World Book Encyclopedia.

After failing to purchase rights to use of the text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and World Book Encyclopedia for its Encarta digital encyclopedia, Microsoft reluctantly used under license the text of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia for the first editions of their encyclopedia. This licensed text was gradually replaced over the following years with content Microsoft created itself.

Person TypeNon-Person