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A pocket edition is a small-sized copy of a book intended to fit in one's pocket. Small, pocket-sized variations of books have existed from early times. For example, the early 8th-century gospel book known as the St Cuthbert Gospel has a page size of only . However, the concept of producing a specific pocket edition of a 
A pocket edition is a small-sized copy of a book intended to fit in one's pocket. Small, pocket-sized variations of books have existed from early times. For example, the early 8th-century gospel book known as the St Cuthbert Gospel has a page size of only . However, the concept of producing a specific pocket edition of a book
A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...
dates to the 20th century. It refers to an edition that has been altered to fit in the reader's pocket, usually by using thinner paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...
, smaller print, and abbreviation of the text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory)
In literary theory, a text is any object that can be "read", whether this object is a work of literature, a street sign, an arrangement of buildings on a city block, or styles of clothi ...
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Pocket editions have been criticized as "not really suitable for library use", with the recommendation that "those bought to cover gaps when no alternative was available should be relegated to reserve as soon as they can be replaced".
One kind of book popularly issued in the pocket format is the pocket dictionary as an edition of larger dictionaries
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
. A pocket dictionary generally "contains no more than 75,000 entries",Mary Ellen Guffey, Carolyn Seefer, ''Business English'' (2010), p. 5. with abbreviated information about each entry, compared to the 170,000 entries or more of a typical desk dictionary, making the pocket dictionary inadequate for use by students beyond the high school level. One critic has described the pocket dictionary as "almost worthless, except as a flimsy guide to spelling and pronunciation". A countervailing view is that although a pocket dictionary can not replace the desk dictionary, "as a portable learning tool, the pocket dictionary is worth its weight in gold".
Another type of pocket size books that were popular among professionals before they have been replaced by smart phones is a specialized reference books. They ranged from very technical catalog of standards for structural engineers, to "Nephrology Pocket" - a digest of medical textbook on nephrology that contains all essential diagrams and tables.
See also
* Miniature bookReferences
Books by type Publishing {{publishing-stub