ABC’s of Book Collecting : Advance Copy May 23, 2009

ADVANCE COPY During the last century, publishers extended the practice of circulating advance copies of a new book to reviewers, chosen booksellers, judges of book-clubs, etc., besides those provided to their own travellers ‘subscribing’ it to the trade. Such copies are normally either final proofs or the first sheets to be gathered of the main run. They are often put up in plain or printed wrappers. But they may be bound; and if so the…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : Adams May 21, 2009

ADAMS H.M. Adams’s Catalogue of Books printed in the Continent of Europe, 1501‒1600, in Cambridge Libraries 1967, despite its apparently restrictive title, is the most extensive complete available list of 16th-century European books, a fact frequently acknowledged by booksellers with the formula ‘not in Adams’. All 16th-century books cannot, in the nature of things, be at Cambridge, and other catalogues, off- and online, may supplement the record, but that would spoil the story. Carter, John…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : Abbreviations May 19, 2009

Abbreviations The prevalence of these in booksellers’ catalogues varies with the descriptive formula. An elaborate catalogue will have few, but most cataloguers use the familiar ones, and in short-title or clearance lists there may be a good many – sometimes explained at the beginning, more often not.Even the abbreviations in common use are not all wholly standardised,nor does the following list pretend to be exhaustive. Most of its contents appear, under the expanded term, in…

The "ABC’s of Book Collecting" on Book Patrol

John Carter’s ABC For Book Collectors has long been regarding as the most informative reference book on the subject of book collecting. Now comprised of upward of 500 entries it remains, to this day, a seminal reference book for booksellers and collectors alike. Originally published in 1952, The ABC’s has been revised and updated over the years by Nicolas Barker. It is now in it’s Eighth Edition and includes additional words and terms created by…