Hello, friends.
I've for the most part of the night searched for a book, or rather a series of books that were published in the early XXth century.
It's relevant for this subreddit in that it's a History of Civilizations series, painstakingly written and richly illustrated. The first volume covers the prehistoric times and Japan, quite curious combination that I hope will ring some bells.
Any help is appreciated. The book is public domain, but now I can't find it on the Internet Archive anymore...
Thank you a lot.
Sometimes when public domain books disappear off Google Books/archive.org, it's because a publisher has decided to "re-issue" them so they are no longer PD.
I have no clue how the legalities work here, but I've seen it happen at least with some of the German stuff I've used in the past. :(
I hope this is not the case here.
I can't find anything matching this title and date range in Worldcat, and if it doesn't exist in Worldcat, it doesn't exist. Do you think you have mis-remembered the title or date? The only thing under this title I think is likely is this, but it was written in the 60s and reissued a couple of times, so it has never been in the public domain. However this stuff has a similar enough series of titles that I can conceive this being what you remember... but it's not by any stretch "richly illustrated!"
It's not in the public domain or from the 1910s, but it sounds like you're describing the Durants' Story of Civilization series based on the combination of pre-historic civilizations and Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization#I.Our_Oriental_Heritage.281935.29