Originally published in 1948, this book contains the text of the Sandars Lectures in Bibliography for the previous year. Carter reflects upon the evolution and method of book collecting from the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1940s, and meditates on what it means to be a book collector, the changing definition of that term, and recent developments in collecting styles. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in bibliophilism or the history of book collecting.

This text is an introduction to the full range of standard reference tools in all branches of English studies. More than 10,000 titles are included. The Reference Guide covers all the areas traditionally defined as English studies and all the field of inquiry more recently associated with English studies. British and Irish, American and world literatures written in English are included. Other fields covered are folklore, film, literary theory, general and comparative literature, language and linguistics, rhetoric and composition, bibliography and textual criticism and women's studies.