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SEE ALSO . . . CLASSIC BOOKSELLING & BOOK AUCTION CATALOGUES

Enjoyable & ESSENTIAL

•  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.

The House & Paintings Were ALMOST as Covetable asthe Books

Click the images for enlargements.

•  First edition. Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceriana is one of the high spots of British bibliophilia; Lowndes says “The collection is the finest private one in Europe; the catalogue will ever be regarded as of the first importance to the theologian, the historian, and the critic, and as a perfect model for the bibliographer.” The present two volumes, published as an accompaniment to the original four, are generally considered as a separate entity for cataloguing purposes. The first is dedicated to the Earl of Spencer's mansion, Althorp, including descriptions (and copperplate engravings) of the most outstanding artworks therein. The second provides a catalogue of “many rare and curious” editions of the Scriptures and 15th-century works in the Althorp library; it is printed in red and black with sections in black letter, and includes many wood-engraved reproductions of 15th-century illustrations, some full-page. Between the two volumes there are 32 plates total, along with numerous in-text engravings.

Binding: Contemporary purple morocco, covers framed in two sets of gilt triple fillets, spines with gilt-stamped title and volume numbers; spine compartments framed similarly to covers and bands gilt-stamped. All edges gilt.

Provenance: Front pastedowns each with bookplate of the “Library Halstead Place,” giving case and shelf location there; vol. I additionally with small ticket of London booksellers, Myers & Co.

•  Graesse 383; Lowndes, I, 640.   Bindings with minor rubbing overall, spines sunned to chestnut rather attractively, vol. I with corners bumped. Bookplate and label as above. Offsetting around plates and illustrations; folding map with light spots of foxing and inner margin reinforced. A luxurious production.  (25780)

Much Varia — An Ad for aPapermaker!

•  Title-page with engraved vignette (in an octagon) of a deity holding a sheaf of wheat with surrounding farm implements, animals, sailing ship, and sun. Includes poetry, anecdotes, jokes, short essays, practical information relating to farming, information on courts and local colleges, and a table of roads. Pages [47–48] contain a papermaker's advertisement, an advertisement for medicines by the author, and a publisher's advertisement by Simeon Ide. Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Drake 13641; Shoemaker 29925.   Uncut copy; later stitching and later oversewing; dog-earing and a bit tattered. Title-page and p. [48] age-darkened. Occasional mild staining.  (10027)

Limited Edition Facsimile

•  Number 86 of a limited edition of 300 copies of this facsimile of the Victoria and Albert Museum copy of this famous writing book.

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

For CALLIGRAPHY / WRITING BOOKS,  click here.

“My Style of DrawingBIRDS”

•  This slim volume offers two essays: a photographic reproduction and a nicely typeset transcription of Audubon’s “My Style of Drawing Birds,” which was published (not entirely accurately) in Maria Audubon's Audubon and his journals, 1897, and his “Method of Drawing Birds,” published in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. 8, 1828, the latter in typeset form only. The original manuscript is presented in fine facsimile showing several authorial corrections and emendations of the first draft, and with a transcription. These are accompanied by a short introductory essay by Michael Zinman and the black-and-white frontispiece “portrait” of a “wip-poor-will.” Limited to 400 copies.

•  New. Attractive.

Real . . . REVELATIONS!

•  Major new, path breaking work revising what we know about trade and publisher's bindings in England, Scotland, and Ireland in the period to 1800. Excellently researched and written and appropriately and fully illustrated in color with examples of the bindings under discussion. A must for all collectors and libraries interested in the literatures and historical writings of Great Britain prior to the 19th century.

•  New, publisher's cloth, in dust jacket. (10888)

A KJV Facsimile withCritical Apparatus

•  1500 copies only were produced of this homage to the first edition of the King James Bible. A modern introduction discusses the history of the Bible in English, the textual sources and principles of translation used to produce the King James Version, the language of the translation, the KJV's early printings and errata, etc. Reproduced from the KJV's first edition are the 17th-century translators' letter of dedication to "the most high and mightie prince, Iames"; the translators' extensive preface "to the reader" (not published in subsequent editions); the 1611 Bible's calendar of readings and feast days, with its table for finding Easter; a handsome full-page plate showing the king's "lion and unicorn" arms, granting the first license for the Bible's printing; a table of Holy Land place names and an engaging double-page map of "Canaan"; and a 34-page section picturing "the genealogies recorded in the sacred scriptures . . . with the line of ovr saviovr Iesvs Christ obserued from Adam, to the blessed Virgin Mary," offering images (among others) of Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, and the Tower of Babel.

As its text examples, this presents the OT book of Psalms and the NT book of John ONLY, complete as produced by Barker and with both the Old and New Testament title-pages reproduced—all at full size in full facsimile, on heavy beige "vellum" paper in dark brown ink. The chosen texts appear in their original "black letter" or "gothic" type, with some elements in roman and italic, and with their full complement of decorated and historiated initials.

•  New. Dark brown gilt and embossed leatherette over thick boards, dark brown moiré doublures. With one white ribbon place-marker and with all edges brightly gilt.

Bibliographers' Bibliographies — Oxford, 1935

•  Cloth-backed boards.

Hard-Core! Bibliography

We have ONE journal left:

(Bibliography Journals).  Bibliographical Society of America. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. Vol. 81:3, Sept. 1987. [New York], 1988. 8vo.
$5.00

•  Wrappers.

As Bibliographies Go, DELICIOUS!

•  Essential for all collections—institutional or private—that include American cookbooks. The Lilly has one of the great collections in this field; Cagle is Lilly Librarian Emeritus and Stafford is a former Lilly Library editorial employee. Temporal coverage here is 1739 to 1950 and all items are given professional bibliographical treatment, including collation. The work also includes illustrations.
•  New, in dust jacket.

“The most important documentary collection for colonial Spanish America”

•  Woodrow Borah writing in Latin America: A guide to the historical literature (a.k.a., “the Griffin guide”) declares, “This is the most important documentary collection for colonial Spanish America, an invaluable source, especially for materials pertaining to the sixteenth century.” The data on AmerIndians, customs, early contact, etc., is outstanding.

A mixed set in mixed bindings: all volumes except 11 are first editions, the exception being a 1966 reprint. Many original wrappers bound in. Volumes 1–10 in early quarter cloth, 11–42 in modern full cloth.

•  Griffin, Latin America: A guide to the historical literature, 2063; Palau 56442.   Bindings as above: Vols. 1–10 with abrasion/discoloration to spines, otherwise minor wear; moderate foxing, and some early annotations. Vols. 11–42, cloth bright; mostly clean internally, last 2 pages of last volume supplied in facsimile. Vol. 38 lacking fascicles 3, 4, 5, and 6.  (25828)

On Forman & Wise

•  Well written and documented account of Wise & Buxton Forman and their now notorious forgeries of books by 19th-century writers like the Brownings, Tennyson, Swinburn, Ruskin, and Stevenson.

•  New, in dust jacket. (3248)

For BIBLIO-FRAUD,  click here.

Bibliotheca indosinica

•  Facsimile reprint of the original 1912–32 publication.

•  Very good in publisher's cloth.

(Crane, Hart).   Schwartz, Joseph.  Hart Crane: An annotated critical bibliography. New York: David Lewis, 1970. 8vo. xi, 276 pp.
$27.50

•  A detailed and valuative bibliography of writings about Crane. Intended for the extreme Crane enthusiast and Crane scholars.

•  Very good copy in dust jacket; dust jacket lightly foxing.

TO Part II

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