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Rare Books

A list of 180 words by reesetee.

About

Words used in the rare book trade (of which I was once a part). For more about how such books are put together, see hernesheir's excellent The Bindery.

Comments

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  • reesetee Thanks for the interesting article, ruzuzu--and sorry for the late reply! Aug 30, 2012

  • hernesheir Thanks for the interesting article, ruzuzu! May 4, 2012

  • ruzuzu I thought of you and hernesheir the moment I saw this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/us/at-brown-university-stumbling-across-a-rarity-in-the-rare-book-room.html?_r=1 May 4, 2012

  • hernesheir I still have the book. Dec 5, 2010

  • reesetee Yes, it does!

    No wonder I had so many problems with asthma when I worked with rare books.... ;-) Dec 5, 2010

  • ruzuzu Yeah... I know. Anthrax seems more likely, doesn't it? Dec 5, 2010

  • reesetee Hernesheir: Niiiice. You still have it, I presume?

    Ruzuzu: The plague?? Dec 5, 2010

  • ruzuzu Woozy, eh? I heard a talk a few years ago by a man whose mentor had the opportunity to rebind an English-language Bible from a time when possession of an English-language version could have meant death for its owners. She described to him how she could still see the stains from when it had been hidden in some stables. Not long after she'd worked on it, she came down with a mysterious illness--the doctors finally figured out that she'd contracted the plague. Dec 1, 2010

  • hernesheir One of my "for one-dollar" scores at a book sale in the 1980's: 1st ed. in fine condition Western Tibet and the British Borderlands. I love the fold-out map of the plane-table surveying to achieve an early estimation of the height of Mt. Everest, and the chapter on what is one of the earliest descriptions of an attempt to scale a Himalayan peak. Dec 1, 2010

  • nuxiy lithotint, oleograph, platemark. Mar 25, 2009

  • reesetee Oroboros, I think AbeBooks has a glossary somewhere on its site. So does Powell's, I believe. :-) Feb 22, 2007

  • reesetee Thanks! Boy, it sure is bringing back memories, too....Nothing can make you woozier than wrapping up a first edition of Paradise Lost to ship to a customer via UPS, or cataloging an illuminated manuscript created in the 12th century. Amazing. :-) Feb 22, 2007

  • oroboros This is great R., now I know where to look when I'm puzzling my way thru ABE books, et al. Feb 22, 2007

  • uselessness This really is a fascinating list. I never would have guessed there was so much jargon related to this field! Or so much detail to be found in the construction of a book. I always thought it was just front cover, pages, and back cover. And if you want to get really technical, binding. Oooooh. Feb 22, 2007