Excerpt from The Story of Libraries and Book-Collecting Readers, especially if they be librarians, will look for an apology from a writer who dares to follow in the footsteps of Edward Edwards. But there is some justification. Memoirs of Libraries is out of print, and expensive to buy second-hand while in some parts it is not up to date. A summary history, published at a popular price, seemed necessary for the elementary student and the general reader, and I have attempted to provide it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Modern Book Collecting offers advice that answers all the basic questions a book lover and collector might have—what to collect and where to find it, how to tell a first edition from a reprint, how to build an author collection, how to get the best price from dealers, how to understand the prices and rarity of books, and more. With a handy dictionary of terms used in auction and dealer catalogs and a new section on Internet resources, this is a must-have guide for book lovers.