Sotheran's

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Sotheran's
IndustryRetail
Founded1761; 263 years ago (1761)
FounderHenry Sotheran
Headquarters
18 Upper Brook Street
Westminster, London, W1K 7PU
United Kingdom
,
UK
WebsiteOfficial website

Sotheran's is a bookshop in London, England, claiming to be the oldest continuously operating bookshop in the United Kingdom and the oldest antiquarian bookshop in the world. It is located at 18 Upper Brook Street in the Mayfair area of London.

History

Founded in 1761 in York by Henry Sotheran, Sotheran's established a presence in London in 1815. In 1901, it was granted the Royal warrant of appointment as booksellers to King Edward VII.[1]

In 1892, Sotheran's managed to get Althorp’s complete library, including its very rare collection of Caxtons, for £210,000 (equivalent to almost £33.5 million in 2024); the collection was sold to Enriqueta Augustina Rylands, who erected in Manchester a permanent memorial of her husband in the John Rylands Library.[2] In 1896, Sotheran's sold to J. P. Morgan a Gutenberg Bible on vellum, for £2,750, and an even more expensive collection of Byron manuscripts; the following year, it secured the Warwick Castle Shakespeare Library for Henry Clay Folger.[1][3][4]

From 1936 to 2024, the shop was located at 2-5 Sackville Street, London.

English bookseller and Charles Dickens scholar John Harrison Stonehouse joined the firm as an apprentice in 1884. He ultimately became the managing director through his skills of literacy, invention, and marketing.[5][6] Under his direction, Sotheran's ordered several significant bindings and fore-edge paintings from renowned binders, including finely painted 'Cosway' bindings.[7] In 1909, Stonehouse commissioned the bookbinders Sangorski & Sutcliffe to produce the famous jewelled copy of Edward FitzGerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, lost with the Titanic in 1912.[8][9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Sotheran's: 250 Years of Bookselling". ILAB - FR. Retrieved 2024-06-09.
  2. ^ Farnie, D. A. (1989). "Enriqueta Augustina Rylands (1843-1908), founder of the John Rylands Library". Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 1989;71(2):3-38. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  3. ^ "The Gutenberg Bible". The Morgan Library & Museum. 2022-07-21. Retrieved 2024-06-14.
  4. ^ "Papers re Warwick Castle Shakespeare Library, Mar 1896-Aug 1897. Papers of A.B. Railton. University of Manchester Library. GB 133 ABR/7".
  5. ^ Herrmann, Frank (2012). "Review of Bookmen: London. 250 Years of Sotheran bookselling". The British Art Journal. 13 (2): 102–103. ISSN 1467-2006. JSTOR 43490556.
  6. ^ Roberts, William (1895). The Book-hunter in London: Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting. A.C. McClurg. p. 233.
  7. ^ Fore-edge Paintings at Syracuse University. 1992.
  8. ^ Gray, Victor (2011). Bookmen, London: 250 years of Sotheran bookselling. London: H. Sotheran. pp. 204–205, 212–214. ISBN 978-0-9508219-6-2.
  9. ^ Kennedy, Maev; arts; correspondent, heritage (2005-07-07). "Legendary book goes to British Library". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-09.


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