Glossary

What book dealers really mean. Click on thumbnails for larger images.

Wartime paper stock

Cheap, highly acidic paper made during World War Two. In order to conserve materials, publishers were encouraged not only to make books smaller, but also to use materials of lesser quality. Consequently these books often deteriorated quickly. After the war publishers in the United States, and particularly the United Kingdom, often had large leftover stocks of this material, so these cheap materials can be found used sporadically in books published for approximately ten years after the war. J.D. Salinger's second book, Nine Stories was printed with a combination of wartime stock and better paper, as seen on the foredge of this copy from our Catalog 89.

Work

What it was to put this glossary together. Also an African-Americana reference volume: A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America by Monroe N. Work. A good reference, but it was compiled in 1928, so its utility is mostly limited to books from before that period. One feature of the book is that it identifies which of the authors who are represented in the book were of African descent.

Wraparound band

Strip of paper, usually with advertising, reviews, or movie-tie-in information that has been added to the book, often at a later date, as is the case with this copy of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, offered in our Catalog 119, which has a wraparound band declaring "Winner of the Nobel Prize." A book so accessorized is usually coveted, as the bands were fragile and invariably discarded. On occasion these are colorfully referred to as "belly-bands" or "belly-wrappers." They are usually not referred to as cumberbunds, or books in bondage.