Essays on American booksellers and librarians in addition to book collectors and bibliographers. Discusses how collectors, booksellers, bibliographers and librarians interact as well as the bibliophile's role in scholarship. Provides information on the history of book culture in America.

An introduction to and advice on book collecting with a glossary of terms and tips on how to identify first editions and estimated values for over 20,000 collectible books published in English (including translations) over the last three centuries-about half are literary titles in the broadest sense (novels, poetry, plays, mysteries, science fiction, and children's books); and the other half are non-fiction (Americana, travel and exploration, finance, cookbooks, color plate, medicine, science, photography, Mormonism, sports, et al).

Guide on book collecting, making use of the electronic tools now available and more proven methods of acquisition. Insights from the world's most notable collectors, dealers and librarians. Collecting strategies. Survey of some prices of antiquarian books.

Party and their guide left the California-bound settlers. Thirty-four undaunted adventurers persisted, often without water, between the bleak salt flats and the trackless mountains, pushing late in the season into the Sierras. They survived on the last of their pack animals and even a coyote for food. The party, including Nancy Kelsey, the first white woman to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains, straggled into the San Joaquin Valley on October 30, after six arduous months.