Unwrap the art of gifting and collecting

A book’s format refers to the shape and dimensions of the physical book. Learn more in our guide to book collecting.

Vintage magazines appeal to people who have a particular interest in old paper, to be sure, but they are also collected for the specific content on and between their covers.

A pre-first edition is any limited run copy of a book printed before the first standard edition is published. These include advance(d) reader copies (ARCs), galleys, salesman’s editions, proofs and sometimes manuscripts. The importance of these editions varies from collector to collector - some enjoy seeing the evolution of a book from concept to publication while others are only interested in collecting the editions meant for public release.

Since the first goal of book collecting should be to collect books that you are interested in it shouldn't be much of a surprise that collections will often be built around a specific kind of fiction or non-fiction topic. Even if you do not consider yourself a "book collector" you can probably take a look at your bookshelves and find the beginnings of this kind of collection simply based on your reading tastes.

One popular theme for collections is books by your favorite author. This could be as simple as finding a single copy of every title published by your beloved writer, or the more specific goal of finding each first edition.

There are two main points to consider when looking at an illustration. Who created the illustration, and what artistic method did they use to create it?