📚 Directories

Who lives where and who does what: the first search engines, and the companies that ran on them.

Below are the 30 works carrying the subject directories in the Open Library catalogue with the most editions in print. Author and first year are as the record states them; a missing year means the record does not carry one, not that the book is undated. Novels set in the subject are left out, because a list of historical fiction is not a list of history. Where one author dominates the reprint counts, no more than two of their titles appear.

Cover	Title	Author	First published	Editions
	Official Congressional Directory	United States	1861	81
	International Directory of Company Histories	St James Press	2017	62
	Owen's new book of fairs	William Owen	1756	33
	The register of patent agents	Chartered Institute of Patent Agents	1969	30
	How to write a play	Lajos Egri	1942	28
	The factory shop guide	Gillian Cutress	1988	27
	上海经济区工业概貎	Shanghai shi jing ji xue hui	1985	26
	Britain	British Tourist Authority.	1976	25
	Questionable doctors	Sidney M. Wolfe	1990	24
	Solicitors' regional directory	Law Society.	1987	23
	Yearbook & register of members	Incorporated Society of Musicians.	1984	22
	Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide 1996	Kyle Husfloen	1989	22
	The Published Ontario medical register	College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario	—	22
	Register of professional private music teachers	Incorporated Society of Musicians.	1988	19
	Where to stay	English Tourist Board	1977	18
	RIBA directory of practices	Royal Institute of British Architects.	1982	16
	Quality control	Dale H. Besterfield	1979	15
	Friuli Venezia Giulia	Anna Maria Mandillo	1993	15
	Job Bank Series	Bob Adams Publishers	1987	14
	Which London School?	Derek Bingham	1991	14
	Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian	Barry T. Klein	1986	11
	Biotechnology Guide U.S.A	Mark D. Dibner	1988	11
	Garden seed inventory	Kent Whealy	1985	9
	Covent Garden Ladies	Hallie Rubenhold	2005	9
	London bookbinders, 1780-1840	Charles Ramsden	1956	8
	The classified directory of artists signatures, symbols & monograms	H. H. Caplan	1976	8
	The Address Book	Michael Levine	1984	8
	Antique Furniture Director	Judith Miller	1985	8
	Genealogy online for dummies	Matthew Helm	1998	8
	1001 incredible things to do on the Internet	Ken Leebow	2001	8

List built from Open Library (CC0 metadata) · retrieved 03 Nov 2026 UTC · capped at 30 works per subject.

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Want the ideas behind these books explained rather than listed? Try Study for short explainers, Academy for deeper tracks, and the periodic table or the night sky when the book is about matter or stars.