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.

Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover and spine elegantly stamped in gilt, cream, and black, front cover with central medallion bearing ship (surely the Mayflower) vignette.

•  BAL 12122 (for first U.S. ed.).   Binding as above, traces of minimal rubbing. Pages extremely clean. A beautiful, very giftable copy.  (29032)

Advertisements on the last page, notably forpatent medicines.

•  Drake 13678.   Uncut copy; later stitching; corners cut. Slight dog-earing, title-page a little tattered. Early inked ownership signature at top of title-page and some marginalia or interlineations.  (9959)

The work is illustrated witheight wood-engraved vignettes, including on the front and back wrappers. The elegant and charmingcrab on the front wrapper is at first a bit of a puzzle, but then the crab is sometimes seen as a Christian symbol of resurrection because it sheds its shell; or, perhaps, the printer simply found his crab elegant and charming and wanted to use it!

This printing is uncommon; WorldCat locates only two U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Publisher's printed blue-green paper wrappers; light, unobtrusive crease to front wrapper, carrying through to first leaf. A very few light spots, pages otherwise clean. Showing little to no wear overall — unusually so for this genre.  (31451)

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 396.   Binding as above, in original glassine dust wrapper and publisher's slipcase; volume clean and fresh, wrapper with small chips to spine extremities, slipcase gently sunned and with a little soiling, one corner bumped.  (30120)

Signed binding: Publisher's mushroom-colored cloth, front cover with jungle vignette stamped in blue and title in green, spine with green-stamped title. Binding signed with “H”: Frank Hazenplug (1874–1931).

•  Binding as above, minor wear to edges and extremities. Front pastedown with inked gift inscription dated 1927. Pages age-toned with occasional smudges, endpapers spotted.  (28932)

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with paper-covered sides, corners the slightest bit rubbed; original slipcase, this sunned and abraded with “spine” broken. Danish copyright information lined through, volume otherwise clean and quite nice internally.  (24517)

•  Publisher's light boards with printed dust wrapper, in Mylar protective jacket. Nearly new.  (23241)

•  Tan cloth over boards, red and black stamped, with vignettes of a biplane, a roadster, a motorbike, and a speedboat in the corners and the author/title in a large oval center medallion. A little rubbed, a little “used,” one page dog-eared; gift inscription dated 1931 on front free endpaper.  (32710)

Binding:  Publisher's textured cream paper–covered boards in very good imitation of morocco, front cover framed in green-stamped fillet, gilt-stamped title surrounded by gilt- and green-stamped floral sprays.

•  Binding as above, paper chipping at corners and spine, spots of light discoloration around edges. Front free endpaper with nicely inked Christmas gift inscription dated 1900. Some pages with mild foxing along inner margins, otherwise clean. A light and sweet production.  (28455)

•  Ex-library with blind pressure- and rubber-stamps, properly deaccessioned.

•  Wright, III, 168.   Publisher's cloth, spine gilt-stamped, front cover stamped in “silver” and gilt; cloth a touch rubbed over corners and spine extremities, otherwise clean and neat. Sewing breaking, not because this is a “bad” copy but because it's the nature of the thing.  (12987)

•  Very good; front cover bright and unmarked, spine notably faded, corners and spine extremities gently worn. All edges gilt. Pages very clean. (1908)

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