Hardback
Book more likely aimed at the library market than at individuals, produced with hard #casing, covered with either cloth (and jacket) or printed paper case, and usually with a higher-quality, sewn binding. As such, the price of a hardback is much (sometimes 3 times) higher than that for a paperback.
The cloth-bound hardback as we know it today first emerged in the early nineteenth century and dominated book publishing until just a few decades ago. It is still the most common format found in many fields of academic publishing but the decline of the academic library market is eroding its position.
This definition is extracted (and expanded on) from the book Getting Published: A Companion for the Humanities and Social Sciences by Gerald Jackson and Marie Lenstrup.
