Advanced Search Help

The search uses initial strings: "Heming" will find "Hemingway" (but not "Hemmingway". Booksellers also make spelling errors!), "H G Wells" will find "Wells, Herbert George".

Accented characters are searched intelligently: "Eglise" will find L'église", "Buecher" will find "Bücher" and vice versa, but "Bucher" will not find "Bücher".

The following list explains the characteristics and/or provides tips on searching particular fields:

Author: if the author's surname is a common one, you should specify one or more initials in addition. If you are uncertain of the spelling or the name is very long, you can search using the initial part of the name: "Dost" will find "Dostoyevsky", "Dostoevskii" etc.

Title: if you are uncertain of the precise title, specify only the part of which you are sure. A few words are usually sufficient: "war worlds" will find "The war of the worlds".

Any word(s): a book will be returned as a match if the word or words in the Any word(s) field occur anywhere in the book entry.

First Edition: select this criterion to return all books specified to be first editions. However, read the book description carefully to determine the precise "first edition" being referred to.

Inscribed: read the descriptions of the nature of the inscription. This can range from signed by the previous owner to detailed annotations by the author.

Drop down Pick-lists: the five drop down pick lists are mostly self-explanatory. These are not reset to default when the Clear button is clicked. "Sort by relevance" is a weighted sort balancing the number of times a criterion occurs against the length of the field contents in which it occurs.