"Everything you need to know about collecting books, in one classic guide. Modern Book Collecting answers all the most important questions a book lover and collector might have--what to collect and where to find it, how to tell a first edition from a reprint, how to build an author collection, how to get the best price from dealers, how to understand the prices and rarity of books, and more. Robert A. Wilson reveals the world of collecting, focusing on books that are collected most often--those by important late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers. Covering every aspect of book collecting, this book includes a handy dictionary of terms used in auction and dealer catalogs, a comprehensive and accurate key to identifying first editions from nearly two hundred American and British publishing houses, a list of bibliographies of more than two hundred collected modern authors, a directory of book auction houses and rare book dealers, and a section on Internet resources."--From publisher description.