The jacket is chipped and rubbed at the edges; there is a library stamp on the title page and again on Allen & Unwin's promotional page, minor foixing to the fore-edge, else a clean, umarked and solid copy. 258 pages, indexed and illustrated, second edition. "The success of the first edition of this book has been most gratifying. Designed as a modest introduction to the principles of film technique, the steady sales of the first edition have necessitated reprinting, it has been translated into several foreign languages, and it appears to have become a standard text-book for organised film courses in America and elsewhere. Encouraged by this undiminished demand, the publishers asked me to 'bring it up to date' by the addition of new material for a second edition. A work of this kind, however, which is essentially a statement of fundamental principles, should not require to be brought up to date in the same way as a history which has fallen behind its time. If the principles were valid when first presented, they will continue so. It remains as true as ever that any film which is more than a mechanical recording, whether of actuality or a theatrical presentation, depends on its use of editing, and it is still necessary to understand clearly what this means in terms of joining lengths of film together, or combining elements of sound in a re-recording, before one can extend the principle (as Eisenstein himself eventually did) to include the montage of elements within a single shot, or to see in montage the creative mechanism of all forms of art." (Questia)