I adore vintage typography books. This type reference book from 1973 is by David Gates. Besides containing a glossary of basic type terms and examples, it also has samples of over 850 typefaces to peruse. Instead of being grouped by name, they are grouped by style category (serif, sans serif, old style, etc). This was especially helpful before the age of computers and font-based programs!

♥View The Typofiles set on Flickr here.