Before a book is offered for sale, we rare book dealers record its physical attributes: Is it bound in cloth? Leather? Does it have any damage? Signs of previous ownership? We also often write a brief summary of its importance, drawing on the work of other experts in our field and surrounding fields—not just literary critics and biographers, but also book historians, or scholars who study the history of the book. We call the result a catalog description, which becomes our official documentation for that rare book.
