Comments on: The Antiquarian Bookshops of Old London

By: Adrian M. M-M

Adrian M. M-M — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 07:46:57 +0000

I, with student friends up to the end of the Swinging Sixties and whilst protesting my Christian credentials at Zwemmer and Co., must have visited most of the bookshops within-written to hit on those elusive and even out-of-date law crammers or revision notes to unlock an understanding of tricky and obscure subject-areas for Uni. undergrad and law finals.

By: LJILJANA ORTOLJA-BAIRD

LJILJANA ORTOLJA-BAIRD — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 11:16:32 +0000

hello,
I am searching information about The Atlas Bookshop that was opened by R.V. Tooley shortly after WWII somewhere off Charing Cross. In my searchI happened on your website with the wonderful photographs of secondhand bookshops of that era. There is one photograph which I have seen published in a magazine dating back to 1994. I believe it to be the map department of Francis Edwards. Would you be able to confirm this? Also are you contact with the photographer. I am the editor of the IMCoS Journal which is dedicated to map history and am publishing an article on R.V. Tooley who was a director of Francis Edwards Ltd.

best wishes, Ljiljana

By: JUDITH TAYLOR

JUDITH TAYLOR — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 20:49:53 +0000

Finding this sitew with its wonderful photographs is a real treat. I was born in 1934 and grew up in Hampstead. My father collected rare books and just after the war ended (there is only one “war”) used to take me with him to look for treasures at Maggs, Quaritch and sometime Edwards on a Saturday morning.

My parents only had rather modest means and my mother remonstrated with my father about spending so much money on rare books but he believed they were a good investment. After a few years he had gathered some important works, such as a first edition of Bacon’s “Essays”, a Fourth Folio of Shakespeare and a first edition of “Pickwick’s’ Papers” with all he special “points” which define it. He had an adviser, an odd and rather lonely man named Wilkinson, “Wilkie”. Wilkie was a walking encyclopedia of rare books and their characteristics. Alas I know nothing else about him.

I am afraid I became quite insufferable at school when I boasted that I did my homework by referring to these editions.

In a recent book by a passionate collector in the US the author makes no mention of Quaritch and only lists a single reference to Bryan Maggs. She largely depended on Sothebys and its auctions.Trying to verify that Quaritch is still in business led me to this site. In my childish mind the manager of Quaritch was an awesome and intimidating figure. My father treated him with deference and great respect.

By: Jean Marshall

Jean Marshall — Tue, 08 May 2018 17:41:12 +0000

I am trying to remember the name of the small children’s book shop in London that I visited several times in the 1980s. It was Dickensian with the elderly proprietor behind a desk on a high dais and books in a delightful jumble. When I returned to London a few years later it was gone. Does anyone remember the name of the shop, the proprietor and/or the street address?

By: Edythe Eisenstein

Edythe Eisenstein — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 10:08:52 +0000

Thank you for sharing the priceless memories and wonderful photos. Just another treasure.

By: Geraldine Beskin

Geraldine Beskin — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 12:37:43 +0000

Hello Dear,
Hiow lovely to read about a fresh, new bookshop opening.
We celebrated our 96th birthday yesterday and served tea and cake to customers who all seemed to leave with a new friend as they had something in common already. There was quite a bit of gentle rivalry for who had been coming here the longest!
I think the first photo you have used is of Andrew Block at work. He had a very distinctive filing system of slips of paper in shallow cardboard trays. He had a sweet but rather mannish assistant who rather scared me when I was young. I can’t remember her name I’m sorry to say.
The black and white photos are wonderful and have reminded me of how things have evolved. We now have a 360 degree panorama of Atlantis that is viewable froma mobile phone anywhere in the world. I expect that is already quaint in some circles!
Best wishes,
Geraldine.

By: Christopher Makey

Christopher Makey — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 09:11:34 +0000

Wonderful to see the photographs, particularly of Andrew Block. I visited his shop in the late 1970s on a quest for ‘anything Wodehouse’ (and cheap, money was tight). Despite his age Andrew disappeared into the cellar and came back with a Programme from The Empire Theatre in 1914 which included the revue by P G Wodehouse and C H Bovill, still a prized possession. When I returned the premises were being demolished but I recall there was a lengthy obituary in The Times following the death of Mr Block. Sadly Cecil Court has not been the same for me following the tragically early death of Nigel Williams. To have been able to visit these bookshops in their heyday was one of life’s treats.

By: Paul Sexton

Paul Sexton — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 07:25:06 +0000

Thank you for your post LOVE old fashioned book shops. But what about Foyles Charing cross
Road?

By: David Loach

David Loach — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 08:43:38 +0000

My favourite place to browse outside of London was Peter Eaton’s country mansion called Lilies near Aylesbury. It was not a shop and you had to ring to make an appointment but it was full of inexpensive books and ephemera, some still priced pre-decimal even in 1980. What may have been expensive at 30 shillings in the 1960s was cheap at 1.50 ten plus years later. Countless huge rooms on 3 levels and you were left alone to wander anywhere. I was often the only customer there on a Saturday morning and spent as much time looking at the furniture, paintings, ornaments, etc. as the books. There was always a cup of coffee on offer too. He had a cabinet of curiosities which was full of the weird and wonderful. One rang a bell to attract the attention of an assistant from the depths of somewhere in order to pay.

On the original topic, Richard Brown has published his photos of bookshops in 3 books:
“The London Bookshop” in 2 separate volumes (1971 & 1977) and “English Country Bookshops” in 2010.

I also love reading about the history and characters of the book trade and the tome mentioned in another response above ‘Out of print & into profit’ contains an extensive bibliography of interesting works. For example O.F. Snelling’s ‘Rare Books and Rarer People’ offers an insight into the book auction salerooms of the 1950s – 1970s.

OK time to get back to reality.

By: Russell Bittner

Russell Bittner — Sun, 10 Jan 2016 22:03:29 +0000

As much as it pains me to read about the closing of one bookshop after another here in the U. S., the rationale is clear: bookshops don’t (or, at best, barely) make money –which makes them virtually unAmerican.

It pains me even more, however, to think of this sorry state of affairs in the U. K.

When I was once a student on the Continent for the better part of a decade, I’d travel occasionally to London (and elsewhere in the U. K.) in order to — among other treats — load up on English-language books.

I can get plenty of shiny new glitz here in NYC — and now, apparently, also in London. But nothing will replace the second-hand bookshops of NYC (e.g., Gotham’s) or the antiquarian bookstores of London. Nothing.