Search Tips

Understanding the way the AbeBooks search engine works can help you find the exact book you are looking for.

In general, the more information you enter into the search fields, the fewer matches you will receive. The most important thing to remember about entering your search criteria is that AbeBooks searches for books that match all the words you enter. In order to maximize your chances of a match, you should enter a minimum amount of information. You can always refine your search further if you are receiving too many matches. The key is to start small.

• More is not always better - our system searches for books matching all the words you enter. Start with fewer search terms and add more to further refine the results.
• Match totals shown are only an estimate.
• Keywords are created by the individual booksellers offering the books and not by AbeBooks.

The accuracy of a search criteria depends upon the following limiting factors: 

• AbeBooks is multilingual, so attributes are searched in multiple languages. 
• Conditions are kept "loose" to be reasonably inclusive. 
• Typing errors in booksellers’ descriptions can cause a listing to appear incorrectly in your search results.

 

Spelling:

• Our search engine will only find books matching the exact spelling in your request. Review your entries for spelling and typing mistakes.
• "Noise words" such as "the" and "a" are filtered out.

Plural Forms and Apostrophes:

• Searching for "mouse" will return results with "mice," and "John" will return results with "John's."
• Our search engine treats apostrophes differently based on whether they appear near the end of a word or the beginning. This is best explained with examples:
      o Search for Handmaids returns Handmaids and Handmaid's.
      o Search for Handmaid's returns only Handmaid's.
      o Search for O'Neill returns only O'Neill.
      o Search for ONeill returns only ONeill.
  
• If you are searching for a term that includes an apostrophe, we recommend that you include it in your search.

Quotation Marks:

Enclosing your search terms in quotation marks can help further refine your results.

For example, a Title search for Beat the Clock will return all listings that contain both beat and clock in the Title field. But a search for "Beat the Clock" will only return results that include the exact phrase - Beat the Clock - in the title field.

When using quotation marks to limit your results, remember to use double quotes ("title") rather than single quotes ('title'). Single quotes will be treated as apostrophes rather than as quotaion marks (see above).