The Barnum of Books

A few years ago, an eccentric Englishwoman sent a -L-250 check to Foyle's bookshop on London's Charing Cross Road with a request for "the best and worst books ever published." Without arching an eyebrow, Foyle's sent her, as the best book, a rare and handsome Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer. As the worst book, Foyle's shipped a six-volume edition of Count Donatien de Sade's gruesome 16th Century work on sexual perversion. Wrote the grateful customer: "How extraordinary of you!"

It didn't seem at all extraordinary to Foyle's. Such services have made it the biggest bookstore in the world. It gets thousands of letters a day from book buyers, seldom has any trouble finding the books they want. Jammed into a cluster of eleven shabby buildings on London's "booksellers' row," Foyle's has 40 miles of shelves, twelve acres of floor space, more than 4,000,000 volumes in stock. It also runs the world's biggest lending library system (15,000 libraries in Great Britain, overseas, and on ships of the Royal Navy and Merchant Marine), operates the biggest lecture agency and the biggest book-of-the-month club (250,000 members) in the British Isles.

Every week Foyle's ships five tons of outdated and damaged books to the paper mill for pulping. The flood of books into the store sometimes hits six tons a week, and books are always dripping off counter-ends, are piled in the aisles. To get more room, Foyle's is clearing out three loft buildings near by, will soon build a brand-new, seven-story annex. Last week, the bustling bookstore took time out to issue an informal midyear report: with sales running at $5,500,000 a year, up 10% from last year, 1951 should be the best chapter in Foyle's history.

Twopence a Pound. The boss of this colossal bookstore is plump, jovial William Alfred Foyle, 66, who got into the book business because his betters thought he was stupid. When he was 18, he and younger brother Gilbert bought a dozen books to study for a Civil Service clerk's examination. They failed miserably. Heartbroken, they offered their books for sale, got such a good price that they bought more books, set up shop in their mother's kitchen and flamboyantly dubbed it "the world's greatest bookstore."

William Foyle made it just that by bringing P.T. Barnum methods to bookselling. He once offered to sell books at twopence a pound, any subject, any classification; he cleaned out his overstock. When an indignant trade journal huffed that this was "trading better-suited to greengrocery," Foyle snapped back: "What's wrong with the methods of a greengrocer? My father was one." Foyle never let his love for books get in the way of his salesmanship. "A bookseller," says he, "must never lose sight of the fact that he is a businessman, not a critic."

When Hitler began burning books in the '30s, William Foyle cabled him: "Can offer high price for all banned books. Do not burn them. Will you negotiate?" Hitler refused to negotiate, but Foyle got his name in the papers. Some of Foyle's publicity comes readymade: a few months ago, a tough who had been knifed in a nearby alleyway staggered into Foyle's, died on the floor of the murder mystery department. Sniffed suspicious Londoners: "Just another one of Foyle's stunts."

2,000 Celery Eaters. Among Foyle's customers are Queen Mary, who sends over for books on antiques and fine art; Winston Churchill, who gets a regular shipment of thrillers, and Labor Party Left-Winger Aneurin Bevan, who tries to read a U.S. western every night.

Foyle now spends less time at his bookshop, leaves the day-to-day operations to son Richard, 42, and to daughter Christina, 40, who has inherited her father's flair for bookish ballyhoo. She presides over Foyle's monthly literary lunches, where new books are launched and authors are publicized. When Health Faddist Gayelord Hauser (Look Younger, Live Longer) appeared, she surrounded him with leaders of church, stage and business, and every one of them was over 80. Once when George Bernard Shaw was slated to speak, he was asked if he wanted a vegetarian menu. Said Shaw: "No, the thought of 2,000 people munching celery at the same time horrifies me."

William Foyle still takes personal charge when one of his customers writes in for an especially exotic book. An elderly spinster recently asked for a book bound in human skin. Foyle sent out his scouts, within a week shipped her a copy of French Novelist Eugene Sue's Vignettes les Mysteres de Paris, printed in 1843 and bound in skin from the shoulders of his Parisian mistress, as she had directed in her will. Price: $28. Says William Foyle: "It's an interesting business, bookselling."

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