The Bookshop

[Grafster]

This thread is for people to add things about the bookshop. I will hopefully be able to make it editable by everyone so people can type around like a wiki.

While I would like to avoid contradiction I do not plan on having this ever be "comprehensive"; so long as things make narrative sense then I am satisfied. Also, less work and more time for story telling.

[Grafster]

Fuller's Table

A battered oval table sits in the corner of the bookshop, almost completely surrounded by tall bookshelves creaking under the weight of the bookshop's extensive collection of military texts. The half-step leading up to the table give the room-like niche a recessed quality.

Ms. Grant,Constantly complains about the table to her friends. [color=#00BFFF]Such a waste of space, but you know Fuller himself used to sit there, practically every week. Can't help but think that he came up with some of his revolutionary ideas sitting there. Such a bit of history, we just can't bear to part with it.[/color]

[Bookman]

Everytime I step into the back storage I'm sure something has moved. There are few windows and the light that filters through the smeared glass is coloured by the fumes from the alley behind us. The air smells of damp, dust and formaldehyde. In the half-light I find my way to my makeshift desk and today's pile of disintergrating leather and rubbed cloth and turn on the desk lamp. It doesn't make things any better. Now I can see the unpleasant diagrams in the books much more clearly; the shadows make the statues, prints and bottles around the room much more eerie. There is a very good reason this room is staff only, if any punter saw this they would call the police, or the Ministry of Health, or a Bishop. I flick my eyes nervously round the room, put my tea down and turn to the next book on the pile.

[AndrewTBP]

The most valuable items on display in the shop are kept in a glass fronted oak bookcase near the counter. It is a modular system from the Globe-Wernicke Company of Cincinnati. Selected by Mrs Grant, of course, the same system stores Mr Grant's personal collection at home.

[Bookman]

Dear Uncle moves in to Charing Cross Road in 1885, just after the buildings are finished, getting a shop front over 58-60. Thanks to a combination of cash injection, connections and hard-nosed negotiation he managed to get a shop and the two (three?) floors above and the basement. The basement is used as storage for uncatalogued books and shop supplies as well as having a small staff kitchen and toilet (which favoured clientele and runners are allowed to use). There is a small space at the very top (couple of rooms) for their living space. Grant lived there as a bachelor, and Mrs Grant lived there in the first years of their marriage, but they moved away to raise their family. Now they live in a flat with a spare bedroom for when the grandchildren stay over. The ground floor is the main shop floor. This is where the good books are displayed (under the watchful eye of Mr Grant). Out the back is Harwood's storage room/office with the basement access to allow him to shift up new boxes of stock and down horrible unsaleable dogs. Out of the shop proper are two staircases (at least...) which lead up to the other floors which have been knocked together into a maze of books. These are less interesting military books, the less outre elements of Malcom's reign (anthropology, my do those Fullerites like their anthropology...psychology, folklore and the like) and then in more out of the way areas the real occult stuff (although not the most expensive items, they are held for the discerning clientele who know to ask about them).

Malcolm lives above the shop as he cannot find a place of his own and someone needs to be on site regularly. The spare room(s) are used by people as they go through (Laura when watching the shop for instance or Carse when he is in town). You couldn't pay Harwood enough to stay over the shop knowing what he does about the contents of the cellars...

With thanks to David Low: 'At No. 56 Mr A.H. Mayhew, another exception, with scholarly interests. Between 1924 and 1929, he published an excellent edition of The Wayland-Dietrich Saga, edited by his friend, Mrs Katherine M. Buck. Like most second-hand booksellers who became publishers, he learned that love wasn't quite enough...'

Nearby is the excellent G Smith and Sons, one of the best (the best?) tobacconists in London, and at 72 is Henry Danielson who was 'discouraging browsers in his shop and camaraderie with his neighbours. A tall man in a dark suit, never without the bowler which he wore in the shop too, he strode down the Road never seeing anyone. English Literature was his speciality, and in 1921 he had written an excellent bibliography of modern authors. He was an authority on the writers of the nineties and if it had not been for the bowler, there was Baron Corvo written all over him. Corvine too the way he lovingly handled his books, and the beautifull pencilling in of the price.' Then at 68, Albert Jackson and Son 'where old Charles's nephew Richard was in charge. The original Albert Jackson had started the bookshop in Great Portland Street in 1873, then after a couple of years in Albany Street, NW1, his son Richard brought it to 68 Charing Cross Road in 1910. He died in 1924, and it was now his son Richard who was in charge.' His assistant was Albert Thomson who came to the shop straight from school after WWI 'with the same gentle smile, during the worst years of the trade depressions of the early thirties...'. And of course a few doors up is the legendary Marks and Cohen at 84 and crucially on the 'right' side of the street, the busy side.

Edited as I forgot who actually lives over the shop.

[Taavi]

I love the local colour but this is starting to sound like a Credit Rating 4+ sort of place, from the locale. of course if we are struggling to make the mortgage/rent it adds a certain desparation.

[Bookman]

Charing Cross has never been upmarket. It is not exactly down at heel either. More...cheap and cheerful. That is not to say there have not some great booksellers there, nor that you can't find great books but the Road is more a 'find anything there' kind of place. Condition, age, importance, first edition etc. are less the thrust as much as just selling books. Plus it is in amongst some dodgy locations in the 30s.

Having said which Willey's opened as an classy location and what with Malcolm's reign, the slump in class of clientele and indeed the general 30s depression it might well leave the shop in trouble, particularly with the amount of space it takes up. That kind of trouble would explain why they have hired a shabby down-on-his-luck occultist instead of a real bookseller, or why The Hon. Llewellyn has decided to use it for his nefarious schemes, or indeed why we would go along with them, and why we are resorting to selling the kind of 'interesting' books Carse brings from France and risking the Obscene Publications Act, or why we are courting the Fullerites and Thelemites and so on. Criminal neccessity clashes with rigorous scholarship and often wins.

[Taavi]

why we are resorting to selling the kind of 'interesting' books Carse brings from France and risking the Obscene Publications Act.

Hey! Those books are art, suppressed by Philistines! Joyce's Ulysses- a searing insight into the psyche of today's artist! Caball's Jurgen - the wittiest thing in two covers! Boris Bigenoff and Ivana Humpalotska's The Legend of Leda and the Swan, with 24 full colour photographic plates for the discerning connoisseur - pure culture!

Besides, between Grant's determination to read every book before he sells it, and Malcolm's idea that if he hasn't heard of something it must be rare and worth buying, I reckon I'm the only one bringing in any actual money around here...

[Bookman]

Hey! Those books are art, suppressed by Philistines!

Heh. It's not me you have to convince, it's the nice men in blue...They seem terribly unconcerned that brave publishers are making available some of the finest work that will be produced in the twentieth century and more about the moral rectitude of their flock. Short sighted says I.

And depressingly yes, you probably are the only one of us making any money. Doesn't speak well for my next wage packet. Thank goodness I took scholarship and not greed (sigh...).

[WinstonP]

Near the front of the shop (and visible from the window so as to draw in passers-by) is a bin of recruitment and other posters from the War (English in the front but a smattering of other nations in the rear). They are pined onto cheap cardboard panels to keep them flat (and visible). The front-most poster is one of the ubiquitous Lord Kitchener ones, more than a little faded from the constant exposure to the sun.

Rev. Poole never lingers by this display when he visits the store (despite it holding some of the cheapest items in the whole shop), not doubt due to his disdain for violence as a man of the cloth.

[Taavi]

Just collating some scattered bits of description from the earlier pre-game thread:

Taavi: When Old Man Willey founded the store, he panelled the whole thing in oak, now somewhat woodwormed. Some of that panelling now covers otherwise unmarked doors and cupboards, preventing overly-curious-but-underly-paying customers or nosy parkers from accessing certain rooms and storage spaces, or even realising their existence. Despite its small size, the odd half-steps between rooms, the gloom of the ageing oak, and the unnerving way staff pop through doors you thought were walls, give the place a somewhat mazelike feel.

Dr Bloodworth: A cluttered atmosphere. Stacks of loose papers and stray books on top of bookshelves. Bits of statuary around (many of which are probably actually forgeries, courtesy of Anthony, but they fool the casual viewer).

Andyw666: In a backroom, books are stacked from the floor to the ceiling in precarious columns that must be treated with respect. Behind the labyrinth of columns lies the kitchen, with an ancient Aga to warm hands and boil the kettle. (Chai for Jory.)

[AndrewTBP]

Grant's has had a telephone for a while. It was installed a few years after the shop changed name. It's in the back room. The required bell set is mounted on the wall and can be heard at the counter clearly. It's still the original candlestick Telephone 150.