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.

This is one of 250 copies printed for private distribution as the press's Christmas book.

•  Publisher's half blue morocco over lighter blue cloth-covered boards, top edge gilt. A fine copy.  (24546)

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The work is illustrated with a number of mounted black-and-white photographs.

Each book in the series was published by the author as a very limited edition and distributed to his friends as a Christmas gift; the present copy is inscribed by Abbott: “Wishing you peacetime Christmas cheer.”

This is the original first, 1918 edition, not a modern reprint.

•  Publisher's bark-patterned paper–covered boards, front cover with printed title; extremities chipped (most notably spine head). Front free endpaper with pencilled inscription as above; pages clean.  (26848)

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)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club 370.   Publisher's gilt-stamped tan and light blue buckram, the colors “split” horizontally across the covers, in a slipcase lightly sunned and with an old waterspot to the label (but sturdy). In original glassine dustwrapper, with upper edges a bit chipped; book clean and fresh,  (13313)

•  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)

12 hand-colored floral plates done by notable botanical illustrator James Andrews

•  Contemporary half sheep and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-stamped raised bands; binding moderately rubbed overall. All edges gilt. Trimmed during binding, in a few cases just touching edges of images. Front pastedown with private collector's rubber-stamp. Scattered faint spotting, pages and plates generally clean. You can imagine subscriberseagerly waiting for each issue of this.  (26865)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; light shelf wear to corners and spine extremities.  (22223)

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

Binding:  Publisher's color-printed paper–covered boards, cloth joints; unusual for the way that the sewing decoratively knotted through the spine.

•  Light signs of wear to hinges and extremities, overall clean and attractive. Pages slightly age-toned. A witty little thing, in construction as well as sentiments.  (26752)

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

•  New. Attractive.

•  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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