In Which a Wee Bit of Great Britain Comes to My Neighborhood

To meet a handsome fellow from London who also owns a secondhand bookstore that carries mostly books by English authors or books about or published in Great Britain, for me is akin to meeting a rock star. 

My heart be still.

Paul Wheeldon, owner of the straightforwardly named Paul Wheeldon Secondhand Books, brought a bit of England into my life when he opened his shop in my neighborhood.

What a perfect place to have a bookish chat on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. 

I discovered that Paul is originally from Harlow New Town, Essex, which is about 25 miles northeast of London. He met his American wife, Sara, in London. She worked in a secondhand book store on Gloucester Road in a building that now houses Slightly Foxed new and used books. Both bibliophiles, they had a book business of their own going - selling online and to bookstores. 

They moved to Louisville five years ago. Paul first opened the store in a space he shared with an art gallery. He recently relocated to a spot just a half mile from me in a building he shares with a record store in the front and a vintage shop upstairs.

His shop at the back is very cozy and comfortable. His curated shelves hold books on military history, shipwrecks, global travel, high-end fashion, royalty, along with literary classics and contemporary British fiction. There are a shelf or two of antique and collectible volumes. The walls are hung with pieces of his own art and vintage maps. A black typewriter sits atop one bookcase. A bobby's hat rests atop another. Of special interest is an entire bookcase full of Penguins.

"I like to think I am a Penguin specialist," he says. "I always look for the orange stripe."

And it's not everywhere that one will find a book featuring Rowing Blazers and boxes full of Tatler and British Vogue magazines.

He only occasionally orders or sells online, he says, preferring to do business face to face.

What has been a great book find for you?
I was living in London and had gone to Norwich on a book buy. I picked up a prayer book and the inscription read: 

To Edith. 

Thinking of you. 

From, 

Edith Todhunter 

1915 

Kingsmoor House 

Kingsmoor House, a small country manor, was five minutes from my home in Essex. I have visited the house. This book now rests permanently on my nightstand.

A more recent find was a first edition copy of The History of Mr. Polly by H.G.Wells from 1910. Although not a particularly popular or valuable book, I knew right away that I had to have it in my personal collection.

What do you like to read?

Bad science fiction. I am particularly fond of the War Hammer series. There are lots and lots of them written by different authors. They are very predictable: the good guys face adversity, they get a beating, and then they come back and win. 

I especially like Sherlock Holmes. To me, Jeremy Brett was the best portrayer of the detective. The man lived it. I also like the Inspector Maigret series by Georges Simenon. The most recent one I read was At the Crossroads. I love that time period and I think they are sexy mysteries. I don't know how he does that.

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Oh, yes. I am destined to spend much time browsing and buying at Paul's bookshop. I am invited to come in anytime for a spot of tea. Aren't I lucky to have this little patch of literary Britain so close by! 

You can see more of Paul and his bookshop here.

Pelican Books

A Levenger catalogue arrived today in the mail. It offers absolutely drool-worthy notebooks, fountain pens, desk accessories, leather gear, furniture, and lamps for the personal library - all out of my price range of course. It touts itself as the purveyor of Tools for Serious Readers.

On the cover of this catalogue is the orange Penguin edition of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Seeing it sent me to my bookshelves to find my one book that has the distinctive Penguin cover. Mine is not a Penguin though. It is a Pelican sporting a light blue cover with the white band. The title is A Book of English Essays by W.E. Williams. It is number A99.

The original price was one shilling and sixpence. I paid two pounds for it in 2002 in a used bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London. The copyright date is 1948 and the owner signed his name in ink on the title page: J. Leslie ???? Nov.'48. I can't quite make out the last name...Weigh or Neigh?

Anyway, this is a prize in my library, not only because I bought it in London, but because is contains essays by Addison and Steele, along with Charles Lamb, Robert Louis Stevenson, A.A. Milne, and Aldous Huxley.

Wikipedia tells me that Pelican was an enlargement of Penguin books that Sir Allen Lane founded in 1935. Pelicans came along in 1937 and were intended to educate rather than entertain. The first Pelican was George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

I see that Mr. Williams, the editor of my book, was one of the four members of the advisory board for the Pelicans and was editor-in-chief of Penguin from 1936 to 1965.

The Pelican series was discontinued in 1984.

I don't see too many old Penguins or Pelicans in American used bookstores which is a shame. In looking for the image above I find that there are some interesting volumes on architecture, composers, poetry, opera, wild flowers, Queen Elizabeth I and life in Shakespeare's time.

This could be a new book quest for me. I see trouble ahead.