PREFACE TO 1st EDITION

This work has been over 10 years in compiling. It is designed to be an aid for collectors of and dealers in antiquarian and second-hand West Indian, English-language, non-fiction books and pamphlets. It does not include works of poetry or literature. Excluded are all works in any language other than English. There exists no adequate, up-to-date, non-fiction, English-language bibliography of the first 500 years of West Indian history and affairs designed principally for the use of the collector of West Indian books and pamphlets. Both Sabin and Bayitch cast their nets too wide, including fiction and non-English language works, and are out of print. Both Ragatz and Comitas include journal items that are not separately collectible, and in any event they also are both out of date. Cundall is inadequate and long out of date. In building my own collection I was forced to compile my own list of collectibles, extracting what information I could from the select bibliographies available to me and listed below, and by personal research. I hope that the resulting work will provide a comprehensive if not exhaustive source of reference for dealers and collectors, improving significantly upon the existing specialized sources that are presently available.

It is worth emphasising that this work lists only separately printed, English-language, non-fiction collectibles. Every effort has been made to exclude ephemera, mimeographed or ring-bound works, plastic comb bindings, and other productions not fit for a collector's shelf. Articles published in journals are not listed here. Important though these are to the researcher, they are useless to the collector. Collections of conference papers and essays are listed only under the name of the editor, with no separate entry for the individual authors. Useful though individual listing would have been for the academic, it is unnecessary for the collector or dealer, as such works are offered for sale only under the name of the editor. ISBN numbers are excluded, as the collector deals mainly with out-of-print works. This book-list has not been designed for use by the librarian, academic, professional or student of West Indian life, history or affairs. There are other specialist bibliographies with these persons in mind. It is hoped that this work will also, nevertheless, prove of some interest to scholars. This work is not broken down by island, or by topic. Island-specific and other specialist bibliographies exist for those that need them. This work endeavours simply to list in alphabetical order every separately published book and pamphlet issued since 1492 concerning every island in the West Indies regardless of specialization. When the database has been completed, lists will be able to be created by the user on demand.

Any corrections or additions sent to me at the below address will be gratefully received.

Don Mitchell, QC

PO Box 83

Anguilla

British West Indies

August 1998

Fax: (268) 463 2428

Email: idmitch@anguillanet.com