GENERAL READING GOOD USED BOOKS
[This is a Mainly-20th-Century General Reading & Reference File]
Part I - Authors A-K  |  Part II - Authors L-Z

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We've created a new series of book lists for you! Most of the usually budget-priced books in these simple, unillustrated, EXTENSIVE catalogues are not offered via any of the databases (e.g., ABE, Biblio, ILAB); they are mostly not described here at our independent website either. It's “find 'em in this list or come find 'em on our shelves”! Click: The LIST of LISTS

Great Letters . . .

•  First edition; part of the Great Letters series.

•  Dust jacket good, lightly worn and chipped over spine extremities, cloth very good with one corner bumped and slight crumpling at head of spine. (3186)

(Addison). Courthope, W.J. Addison. London & New York: Macmillan, 1889. 8vo.
$10.00

•  In the "English Men of Letters" series edited by John Morley.

•  Publisher's cloth, covers heavily soiled and interior quite clean. Private ownership stamp on front free endpaper.

For the Fan of Historical Novels, 1883

•  A guide by the era (e.g., Anglo-Saxon, Elizabethan, Civil Wars) in which the plot is set, to historical novels in English. By a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

•  Lacks the wrappers. Five-digit number stamped on title-page. Printed on brittle paper and some chipping in margins.

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"Jottings of a Harvard Botanist"

•  First edition, from a printing of 1500 copies. With a foreword by George Plimpton, the writer and ever-game sports enthusiast ("Paper Tiger", etc.), and grandson of the botanist.

•  Good; dust jacket lightly worn with spine faded (not unattractively) from green to blue, cloth clean and nice save for very minor spots of wear at head of spine and top edge of back cover. Pages crisp. (3177)

With an A.L.S.

•  First edition. With a long autograph letter, signed by the author, tipped in.

•  Publisher's cloth, no dust jacket. Good condition.

Observations . . .

•  Book Club edition with copyright page unchanged from the first trade edition. A collection of articles which appeared in Russell Baker's "Observer" column in The New York Times and his "Sunday Observer" column in The New York Times Magazine, from 1973 to 1980.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good condition.

On Printing History

•  Fully revised for the first time since its original publication in 1955, this work discusses the history of the book in western civilization and the role of the printer as an agent of cultural change. This revised edition includes over one hundred illustrations chosen from the rich collections of the British Library.

•  New. Paperback.

Inscribed

•  First edition. Inscribed copy.

•  Paperback. Fine condition.

The Arias for Piano

•  The libretto in Italian and English, with the main arias arranged as piano solos. With advertisements for Weber pianos; the front wrapper is adorned with an engraved portrait.

•  Good in original printed paper wrappers, some upper edges uncut, a few short edge tears and slight crumpling to upper outer corners. (2466)

Berenson, Bernard. Sunset and twilight. From the diaries of 1947–1958. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, [copyright 1963]. 8vo. xxv, [1], 547, [1] pp.
$17.50

•  First edition: Excerpts from the diaries of Berenson's later years.

•  Good; dust jacket with edge chips, creases, and small discolorations, cloth beneath clean with minor edge and corner wear. (3158)

CARMEN

•  The libretto of "Carmen," in Italian and English, with "the Principal Airs and Gems of the Opera arranged as Piano-Forte Solos, by distinguished Professors." With advertisements for Weber pianos.

•  Good in original printed paper wrappers, a few short edge tears, very minor soiling to front and back wrappers. (2460)

(Blake, William). Dorfman, Deborah. Blake in the nineteenth century: His reputation as a poet from Gilchrist to Yeats. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1969. 8vo. 314 pp.
$22.50

•  Publisher's cloth, dust jacket.

Cold War Spy Novel

•  First trade edition, first issue. Inscribed by Arnaud de Borchgrave, the current President and CEO of United Press International, on the half-title. Incidentally, "the spike" refers to the killing of a news story because the editor doesn't agree with its politics.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good condition. Light water stain on lower outside corner of all pages. Good dust jacket that shows wear; slightly soiled.

Illus. Edmund J. Sullivan

•  Handsomely printed and illustrated.

•  Very good. Green publishers cloth, gilt-lettered; some fading by the sun to spine. Pages untrimmed and partially uncut. Top edge gilt. (3139)

Maritime Derring-Do — Romance for Boys?

•  “A romance of the days when 'The Great Lord Hawke' was King of the Sea.” First edition.

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover and spine stamped in white, green, and gilt; binding slightly cocked, with light rubbing to extremities. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate ("Fifth Form English Library"); front free endpaper with small bookseller's ticket and pencilled owner's name. A clean, handsome copy. (16721)

Brown, John Mason. Dramatis personae: A retrospective show. New York: The Viking Press, 1963. 8vo.
$14.00

•  Book Club edition. A collection of articles written by drama critic John Mason Brown that appeared in The Saturday Review, from 1929 to 1963.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

Campaign 1952, & Inscribed

•  First trade edition, later issue. Inscribed by the author. A book and drama critic writes about the major political personalities surrounding the 1952 United States presidential campaign.

•  Publisher's cloth. Spine lightly sunned. Good-plus condition.

For more POST-1820 AMERICANA, click here.

Diplomatic History, & Memoirs

•  First edition. A unique perspective on American foreign policy during the Carter Administration.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good-plus condition.

A Young Man's Fancies

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  First edition: An artist's romantic escapades with an overly bold young woman of respectable family, an innocent country Quaker, and an actress. This is the original first edition, not a modern reprint.

Binding:  Publisher's olive-green cloth, front cover and spine stamped with title and floral decorations in maroon, dark blue, and gilt.

•  Wright, III, 773.   Binding slightly cocked, extremities rubbed, back cover with small spots of discoloration, spine head lightly discolored. Ex–social club library: call number on endpaper, title-page rubber-stamped, no other markings. A few leaves with small spots of staining (tea drops?), otherwise clean. An entertaining read in a pretty, if not pristine, binding.  (26886)

Cambridge/RiversideByron

•  “Cambridge Edition,” printed and bound at the Riverside Press. Binding: Publisher's half navy morocco with light blue cloth-covered sides, leather edges ruled in gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title, spine compartments ruled in triple gilt fillets with gilt-stamped dotted rules on raised bands. Top edge gilt. Silk ribbon placemarker.

•  Binding as above, very gently sunned, upper outer corners slightly bumped. Front pastedown with private collector's armorial bookplate. Pages clean. (19634)

(Byron). Nichol, John. Byron. London & New York: Macmillan, 1888. 8vo.
$10.00

•  In the "English Men of Letters" series edited by John Morley.

•  Publisher's cloth, covers with a few stains and interior quite clean; tiny label of a Belfast bookseller inside front cover and small private ownership stamp on front free endpaper.

Renaissance Classics withCommentary from Two Modern Masters

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Verses selected and prefaced by W.H. Auden, and introduced by John Hollander. Many of the texts are accompanied by music, with some photographic reproductions of songs from the Bookes of Ayres. The book was printed at the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy, with calligraphy by Edith McKeon Abbott and engraving by Leo Wyatt; this is the trade edition rather than the deluxe printing of the same year.

•  Publisher's red cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, in original dust jacket; jacket lightly dust-soiled, price-clipped. A beautiful clean copy of a beautifully done book.  (24833)

Ed. Lillian Hellman

•  First printing; part of the Great Letters series.

•  Dust jacket good, with light wear and some chipping at head of spine, cloth slightly faded at upper edges. Pages very clean. (3187)

China & Its Art

•  Second edition, first edition published in 1975. Lavishly illustrated by Joan Cohen with color photographs of the people, places, and antiquities of China. This offering includes the Smithsonian Institution's 32-page China 1986 travel pamphlet.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

VENICE

•  A brief history of Venice for young adults.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket; one short tear at base of the front "joint" of dust jacket.

•  Edition not stated. A collection of Churchill's speeches from May, 1938 to January, 1941.

•  Publisher's cloth. Spine faded a little. Good-plus condition.

For more ENGLISH POLITICS, click here.

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)

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First Paperback Edition

•  First edition in paperback. Number 3 in the series "Avon Modern Short Story Monthly."

•  Very Good condition. Original printed wrappers, spine lightly sunned. Pages browned from cheapness of paper. (3406)

Defourneaux, Marcelin. Daily life in Spain in the golden age. New York [Washington]: Praeger Publishers, [1971]. 8vo. 256 pp.
$10.00

•  Translated by Newton Branch; the title tells all.

•  Blue publisher's cloth, in very good condition, with dust jacket (soiled).

“Days When ALL the Dreams Come True”

•  Charming fifth entry in the Appleton “Joy Street” series of stories and poems for children. In addition to De La Mare, contributors include Algernon Blackwood, Rose Fyleman, Lord Dunsany, Madeleine Nightingale, and Hilaire Belloc, among other familiar names. The volume is illustrated with eight color half-tone plates tipped onto colored paper leaves, along with numerous in-text black-and-white illustrations, these done by May Smith, Hugh Chesterman, Marian Allen, and others.

•  Publisher's tan cloth with terra-cotta printed medieval pattern, dust wrapper lacking; spine sunned, corners with minor soiling. Title-page with minor offsetting from frontispiece. Showing some external wear, but still a clean, solid, engaging copy of an entertaining work — in fact, a joy.  (26068)

"I wish she would writea Jalna book a year for the rest of her life . . ."

•  First U.S. edition, second printing, of this episode in Canadian writer De la Roche's multi-volume epic of Jalna. The front of the dust jacket bears Lee Thayer's colorful depiction of Adeline sitting on a large stump, with Capt. Whiteoak standing next to her gesturing at the construction of Jalna in 1850.

•  Very good condition with a good+ dust jacket (small tears, price clipped from front flap).

Classic Criticism

•  In the "English Men of Letters" series edited by John Morley.

•  Publisher's cloth, with tiny label of a Belfast bookseller inside front cover. Clean inside and out; small private ownership stamp on front free endpaper.

"The Global Human Family"

•  Book club edition of this humanist look at social evolution.

•  Very good; dust jacket faintly age-toned with one short edge tear, cloth clean and nice save for stain along lower back edge. Pages crisp. (3178)

Dubos, René. God within. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, [1972]. 8vo. 325, [1] pp.
$12.50

•  Book Club edition of Dubos's study in the philosophy of religion.

•  Very good. Blue publisher's cloth stamped in green and gold. Some fading to spine and top of covers. (3102)

Earnest & Illustrated

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Sole edition of this English translation of Les soeurs grises dans l'extrême-nord, an account of a Canadian mission. As the nuns must get to the North, this has aspects of a travel; it has often a good deal to say about Native Americans, and certainly it demonstrates one aspect of “contact.”

This is illustrated with a good many half-tones.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine with black-stamped title; spine sunned and with inked call number, spine head chipped, corners slightly rubbed. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper faintly rubber-stamped.  (24822)

•  Publisher's cloth. Light wear to corners and edges; head and foot of spine frayed. Hinge (inside) at rear cracked. A few corner-chips and dog-ears, otherwise, a sound and good copy.

Interesting & Still Instructive

•  Part of Lippincott's "Practical Book" series. Aimed at the era's collectors of moderate but not extravagant means, this provides detailed descriptions of china in its major varieties from the beginnings of its manufacture up to 1840. Numerous black-and-white and color illustrations.

•  Publisher's cloth, front and spine stamped in black and blue; small stain to front cover, some wear to head and foot of spine. Top edges gilt, others untrimmed. Sturdy; pages clean.

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Art – Antiques – Crafts – Decorative Arts – Architecture
– Interior Design – Etc., 
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The Bestseller

•  Book Club edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

NOT a "Collector's Copy" — But FUN to Have
in This Early Form

•  First edition, second printing; top page edges stained gray as issued, M. McKnight Kauffer listed on front dust jacket flap.

•  Cloth with a few light spots, spine extremities faintly worn, dust jacket with slightly ragged edges and some spine fading. (2113)

Vintage Faulkner

•  First edition, later issue of the second volume in the Snopes series.

•  Cloth fine, dust jacket good; jacket slightly darkened around edges, with minor chipping at spine extremities. (2114)

Keep 'em Alive!

•  Undetermined edition. With black-and-white photographs and color drawings.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Fowler, Karen Joy. The sweetheart season: A novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. 8vo. [10], 352, [16] pp.
$9.00

•  First Ballantine Books edition. Included is a "Reader's Guide" at the end in the form of a transcription of a conversation with the author and questions for a reading group.

•  Paperback. Light crease to upper right corner of front cover; in very good condition.

China . . .

•  Book Club edition. A foreign correspondent's encounters with ordinary Chinese people.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

ATTRACTIVE EARLY & INEXPENSIVE   

•  Second edition, later printing.

•  Publisher's quarter green cloth and green paper sides, stamped in gilt on the spine and front. Gilt on spine rubbed. Previous owner's signature on front free endpaper. Frontispiece (with protective tissue guard) loose. A very good copy. (8215)

Gardner, John W. Self-renewal: The individual and the innovative society. New York, Evanston, & London: Harper & Row, 1963. 8vo.
$20.00

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

Verse Long-Lovedby Lovers

•  Book Club edition, stated 68th printing. First published in 1923. A book of poetry on such topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, freedom, reason and passion, teaching, friendship, talking, time, and others. Illustrated with the author's own drawings.

•  Publisher's black cloth, stamped in blind and gold. Fine.  (5219)

Mother Angelika Would Recommend This Book!

•  First edition, first issue. A clergyman's response to the "putdown words" of Church critics. Each chapter is introduced with a putdown which Dr. Glenn counters with his own positive definition of the word, followed by a lengthy explanation of its importance to Church members. Some of the putdowns are "ritualism," "mysticism," "do-goodism," "evangelism," and "puritanism."

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Gordimer, Nadine. My son's story. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1990. 8vo. [10], 277 pp.
$20.00

•  First U.S. trade edition, first issue. This novel appeared one year before Gordimer, a South African writer, won the Nobel Prize.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth and beige paper sides. Fine copy, in fine dust jacket.

First Edition

•  NCBEL, III, 1432. Publisher's green cloth over beveled boards, gilt-stamped on the spine and front cover. Top edge gilt, other edges uncut. Spine dull. Early inked ownership signature on the front fly-leaf. Frontispiece with a protective tissue guard. Clean and tight; a very good copy. (8241)

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First English

•  First edition of the English translation of this "splendidly bizarre" (according to the dust jacket) novel revolving around the Vistula River and Hitler's favorite dog.

•  Good; dust jacket with minor edge crumpling and slight age-toning. Cloth and pages clean. (3176)

AMHERST

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's cloth, issued without dust jacket. Dust soiling and one spot of discoloration on the binding. Very good condition.

Britain's Heritage

•  Unspecified edition. With lots of black-and-white photographs. Tour of Britain's battlefields, castles, cathedrals and churches, towns, and more. The date looks to be circa 1960.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good-plus condition; cloth sunned in places.

"The Military Service Publishing Co." (1945)

•  Mass market paperback; first Superior Reprints edition. M652 in this series. First published in 1936. List of Superior Reprints in print as of June, 1945, on inside of back cover.

•  Original wrappers, all edges stained red. Spine slightly cocked and lightly rubbed, covers with a little faint creasing. Mildly age-toned. No tears, internally clean. Very good. (7179)

CHINA   

•  First edition in English. Third volume of a four-volume series; originally published in 1930 as Tome III—La Chine, Les Civilisations De L'Orient. With 280 black-and-white illustrations of paintings, bronzes, and other artwork.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good condition.

Cultural Scholarship . . .

•  Philosophical look at culture, technology, modernism and the beginnings of postmodernism.

•  Near fine. Quarter publisher's cloth over blue paper. Original dust jacket in good condition. Author's presentation inscription on half-title. (3083)

Important Scholar — Important Book

•  First edition, first issue. Inscribed by the author. A critical examination of technology and the changes that it causes to our sense of identity.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

•  First American edition, one of a number this year; there was also a London, 1892 edition.

•  BAL 7362. Publisher's red cloth. Text slightly skewed in binding.

Harte, Bret. Sally Downs and other stories. Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893. 8vo.
$35.00

•  First American edition.

•  BAL 7367, issue A. Publisher's olive cloth; heavily rubbed. Text slightly skewed in binding; hinge cracked and few gatherings cracking.

Science Technology & Politics

•  Examination of science and technology, their impact on the disparities between nations, and their importance in understanding the cold war.

•  Very good. Blue publisher's cloth, gilt-lettered. Without dust jacket. Some fading to spine and top of front cover. Author's presentation inscription on front free endpaper. (3085)

First State — His First Book

•  The author's first book, set in Germany in 1914 and in 1945, here in its first state binding (gray cloth). Part of the Direction series.

•  Dust jacket good with light wear and slight discoloring of yellow portions, cloth very good with minor wear at spine extremities. Pages clean. (3185)

Dartmouth's Laureate

•  First edition. Poems by “Dartmouth's Laureate," edited by Edwin Osgood Grover.

•  BAL 9401. Green publisher's cloth, front cover stamped in white and gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title; clean and solid, with only very slight traces of wear to extremities. Front free endpaper with inked owner's name. (16665)

Attractive Little Book!

•  Second edition.

Binding:  Publisher's green cloth elaborately stamped in gilt on front cover with an overall pattern of torches with bows, surrounding a central cartouche with the title and author in gilt.

Click the images for enlargements.

•  BAL 9577 (for first edition).   Binding as above, lightly rubbed at base of spine, small area of minor discoloration on spine. Ex–social club library: call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on title-page, no other markings.  (26805)

Systematic Skepticism

hypnotism, spiritism, mental therapeutics, &c.

•  "Thirtieth edition," following the first of 1893, of this popular and oft-reprinted classification and description of psychic phenomena.

•  Publisher's cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; cloth lightly rubbed over edges and extremities, with two small creases over the front cover. One page with lower corner torn away. (14304)

Illustrated

•  Handsome, interesting illustrations enrich this edition of this classic novel.

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with illustrated paper sides, some wear. Slipcase. Signature in ink on half-title.

Very Victorian -- That's in a GOOD Way!

•  Early offprint from the Library Magazine.

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title, cloth showing very minor wear to extremities and some slight wrinkling over back cover. Front free endpaper with faint early owner's name. (16726)

(Hunt, Leigh). The autobiography of Leigh Hunt. Newly edited by Roger Ingpen. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1903. 8vo. Illus.
$17.50

•  First edition. Volume one only (of two). Covers Leigh Hunt's early life, from 1784 to 1812. Illustrated with portraits (frontis and five plates).

•  Publisher's cloth. Small tears on several pages. Fair condition.

Scott Burns Coleridge

•  Vol. VI in this edition of the "English Men of Letters" series edited by John Morley—but no exterior sign that it is an "odd volume" (i.e., no volume number appears on the spine).

•  Publisher's blue cloth with nice gilt lettering on spine and gilt "EML" device on front cover. Very good condition.

His Generation'sPerfect Shakespearean?

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Ex-library copy with visual markings. Inked "w" for withdrawn on title-page. Binding discolored.

(Italy).  Deiss, Joseph Jay. Herculaneum: Italy's buried treasure. A vivid re-creation of life of Pompeii's sister city. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Small 8vo. Illus.
$12.50

•  Paperback edition, revised and updated. First published in 1966. Lots of photographs.

•  Very good condition.

“On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868 . . .”

•  Sixth edition, following the first of 1877: James's novel of an American businessman wooing an aristocratic Parisian widow. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Edel & Laurence, Bibliography of Henry James (3rd. ed.), A4 (for first ed.); Wright, III, 2909 (for first ed.).   Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt and maroon; a bit cocked, rubbed, spine with area of discoloration from now-absent label, and some light patches to cover cloth. Ex–social club library: call number on blank side of preliminary advertisement, rubber-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages age-toned, with faint staining in upper margins towards back of volume.  (26559)

First American Edition

•  First American and first one-volume edition, following the two-volume London edition of the same year: James's tale of a young American girl in Paris, her acquaintance with a correspondent of an American scandal sheet, and the impact of her indiscretion on an old Parisian family.

•  BAL 10583; Edel & Laurence, Bibliography of Henry James (3rd. ed.), A31b. Not in Wright.   Publisher's blue cloth, upper edge of front cover and spine with gilt-stamped decorative band, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding very slightly cocked, very minor rubbing, spine with square of light discoloration from a now-absent label. Ex–social club library: 19th-century call number on half-title, title-page rubber-stamped. No other markings.  (26537)

We have, at the moment, an interesting number of
such “first American editions.” Please, enquire!

(Japan).  Rudofsky, Bernard. The kimono mind: An informal guide to Japan and the Japanese. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1965. 8vo. Illus.
$15.00

•  First trade edition, later issue. Now rather quaint!

•  Publisher's cloth. Good condition; spine sunned, cloth dusty.

From Paul to Pope John XXIII

•  Fifth printing. First American edition published in 1976.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

African History

•  Later edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Spine and part of the front cover sunned. Good condition.

Surgeon & Scholar

•  Later edition. First edition published in 1981. The autobiography of Geoffrey Keynes, renowned surgeon, book collector, and biographer of Blake, Donne, Austen, William Harvey, and others; and brother of noted economist Maynard Keynes.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Commemorating theFirst Anniversary of His Death

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

•  One of six hundred handsome copies printed for private distribution.

•  Stiff printed wrappers, center bit of top edge a trifle bumped. Near fine. (23499)

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•  A late edition of this Victorian exercise in Anglo-Saxon mythologizing (first edition 1866). One spine label of this indicates that the volume was one of a set of Kingsley's Works, though there are no other signs of that (no volume number appears anywhere).

•  Publisher's half calf with gilt spine, marbled boards, endpapers, and edges; both spine labels now lost, leaving compartments stamped in blind. Paper a little age-toned as typical of the period.

"21 Brilliant Comedies"

•  Anthology of important theatrical works.

•  Good, cloth faded around edges and over spine, corners bumped. (3160)

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