probably contributed to its ultimate decline, as subscribers and sale of publications fell away. The Biographical Dictionary begun in 1842 was immensely ambitious and contributed to the Society's demise. Main publication series Library of Useful Knowledge (1827–46) British Almanac (1828–1914; and associated Companion) Library of Entertaining Knowledge (1829–38) Working Man's Companion (1831–32) Quarterly Journal of Education (1831–35) Penny Magazine (1832–45) Gallery of Portraits (1832–34) Penny Cyclopaedia (1833–43) Library for the Young (1834–40) Farmers Series, which included works by William Youatt on the dog, the horse, cattle, and sheep (1834–37) Biographical Dictionary (1842–44) Maps, primarily in a two-volume set, and prepared to a very high standard (many drawn by W.B. Clarke, architect). The Society was a pioneer in utilising "volunteered geographic information". In popular culture Thomas Love Peacock satirised the SDUK in 1831 in Crotchet Castle as the 'Steam Intellect Society': a vicarage is almost set on fire by a "cook taking it into her head to study hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society". In the Notes to Anthony Trollope's book, Framley Parsonage, published by Oxford University Press as a World's Classic in 1980, P. D. Edwards writes that Trollope's character, Lord Boanerges, "may have been modelled in some respects on Lord Brougham.... founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge". References to the Society are rare in the modern era, but within Steampunk culture, it is not entirely uncommon to refer to the Society itself and/or its better-known publications in an attempt to lend Victorian verisimilitude. The in-house publishing organ of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles is called the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Information; while many communities in North America have established Societies for Learning in Retirement which are partially modelled along the same lines with the goal of disseminating knowledge amongst people who, although retired, are still interested in continuing to learn. The Blackwood Gallery, a contemporary art gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga, has published a series of free print and PDF broadsheets since 2018, which adopt the SDUK moniker. These publications reflect on contemporary issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences by questioning the nature of “useful knowledge,” in dialogue with the history of the SDUK. Related societies An American group of the same name was founded as part of the Lyceum movement in the United States in 1829. Its Boston branch sponsored