ABC FOR BOOK COLLECTORS
ABC FOR BOOK COLLECTORS
Enjoyable
& ESSENTIAL
Carter, John
& Nicolas Barker. ABC for
book collectors. Eighth edition with corrections, additions,
and a new introduction by Nicolas Barker. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press &
the British Library. 8vo. 232, [2] pp.
• Are you a novice reader of rare book cataloguing who is just beginning
to realize that there
might be a difference between a "joint" and a "hinge"? Would you rather be asked
for the
proof of "E=MC2" than for the meaning of " *6a-z6A-R6S2**6)(6)()(4T6V-X4 "?
Or are you on the other hand a connoisseur of the bibliographer's terms of art
who savors the very
sound and cadence — as well as the exact and enticing images that the words and
sentences
raise — in a description like the following: "18th-century olive morocco; round
gilt spines extra without bands; gilt triple-line fillet frames on covers with
gilt corner devices; single gilt rule on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. Dutch-style
printed endpapers with gilt and green stars and dots on a white field. All edges
gilt; all pages ruled in red in the 17th-century style"?
At once a great basic resource and a rewarding volume for browsing or bibliophilic
pleasure-reading, this classic work by John Carter contains over 490 alphabetical
entries offering definitions and analysis of technical terms as well as the
jargon of book collecting and bibliography — with ample examples. A vice-president
of the Bibliographical Society and Sandars Reader in Bibliography in the University
of Cambridge, its author also worked for Scribner's and Sotheby's, and over
the course of his active career he wrote or edited many well known and influential
books about books. 
With
Percy H. Muir, Carter was a prime mover of the legendary 1963 exhibition from
which was derived that landmark text and guide among guides — Printing and
the Mind of Man.
Carter's ABC (first printed in 1952) was revised and expanded
by Nicolas
Barker, his friend and the respected editor of The Book Collector, making
good use of the author's own annotations and bringing
to bear his own
great
knowledge
and brisk style. A new introduction was also provided. This eighth edition incorporates
the "lexicon
of
new
bibliographical
terms" brought into use by the Internet, in addition to other additions
and amendments arising since the publication of the previous revised edition.
The result has been lauded as "the wittiest and most instructive
alphabet for incipient bibliophiles ever compiled" (Books); it has been
asserted that "No better guide to the whole subject has appeared in print" (Chicago
Tribune). 
This
is a book that no purchasing collector or cataloguer should think of as a frivolous
expense, and a book that as a gift to a collector or cataloguer cannot fail to
please.
• New. Complete with printed dust jacket.
