Help please - Encyclopedia of Animal Life Partworks - Late 70's

[GolfDelta]

Hi, I'm trying to find out the correct name and publisher of a weekly partwork magazine that I collected in the UK in the late 70's or maybe early 80's. I think it was called Animal Life and it was an encyclopedic magazine, photo entries of each animal, covering mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and ran alphabetically from A-Z. I have found several of these but none relate to the time I collected it. I've found Purnell's Encyclopedia of Animal Life that was published in 1968 but that is too early for me, I was too young then. Although the covers of these seem very similar from memory, so I wonder if they re-published it again in the late 70's or early 80's. I've also seen the Marshall Cavendish publications, same name, same type of cover but these date from 1973, again, I think this is too early for me. If it helps, I also collected Wings, an aviation partworks at around the same time and this run started in 1977. Can anyone help me find the correct name and publisher of the magazine I collected please?

[George 1978]

Regarding the publisher, it was either Marshall Cavendish or Orbis that used to do those "free binder with part one" partworks in which WHSmith used to stop selling after the fourth issue.

I would guess that Orbis was the publisher but it is just a guess.

[GolfDelta]

Thanks for the replies. I have looked at the Orbis World of Wildlife publication but this seems to be between 1970 to 1973, so a little too early for me then and also it doesn't seem to be in alphabetical order, ie, Issue 1 started with Aardvark, Antelope, Avocet etc and then the final part ending with Yak, Zebra etc. Is it likely it was republished again in the late 70's?

I did order this through my newsagent and collected it every week.

[George 1978]

A lot of partworks seemed to switch to subscription only after a few parts, or at least needed an ordered in at your local newsagent.

It was a pain in the backside when that happened - you don't get that with weekly magazines or daily newspapers. I assumed that the stores like WHSmith had a change of heart and decided not to be lumbered with selling it all year round.

[beccabear67]

I remember things like this but I never seemed to get more than one or two random editions (never mind the binder for the full set that was advertised). Still have one sole number from a long series on Rock & Roll history, the 2-Tone ska one. I did have some animals magazines/chapters, one of the late '70s was connected to the U.S. National Geographic children's World title and had collector file cards and posters, but the other, there's no way I could begin to find information on that one now, and it probably was UK/Commonwealth. It was thin and a sort of A-Z entries format.