The Dictionary of the Book

Named a Library Journal Best Reference of 2023 - From Library Journal's Starred Review: "This ambitious and entertaining update solidifies Berger’s volume as a must-have title for librarians, booksellers, collectors, and students of the book arts and book history."

This new edition of The Dictionary of the Book adds more than 700 new entries and many new illustrations, bringing the vocabulary and theory of bookselling and collecting into the modern commercial and academic world, which has been forced to adjust to a new reality.

The definitive glossary of the book covers all the terms needed for a thorough understanding of how books are made, the materials they are made of, and how they are described in the bookselling, book collecting, and library worlds. Every key term—more than 2,000—that could be used in booksellers’ catalogues, library records, and collectors’ descriptions of their holdings is represented in this dictionary.

This authoritative source covers all areas of book knowledge, including:

• The book as a physical object
• Typeface terminology
• Paper terminology
• Printing
• Book collecting
• Cataloguing
• Book design
• Bibliography as a discipline, bibliographies, and bibliographical description
• Physical condition and how to describe it
• Calligraphy
• Language of manuscripts
• Writing implements
• Librarianship
• Legal issues
• Parts of a book
• Book condition terminology
• Pricing of books
• Buying and selling
• Auctions
• Items one will see at antiquarian book fairs
• Preservation and conservation issues, and the notion of restoration
• Key figures, presses/publishers, and libraries in the history of books
• Book collecting clubs and societies
• How to read and decipher new and old dealers’ catalogues
• And much more

The Dictionary also contains an extensive bibliography—more than 1,000 key readings in the book world—and it provides current (and past) definitions of terms whose meanings have shifted over the centuries.

More than 200 images accompany the entries, making the work even more valuable for understanding the terms described.