I decided the other day to re-read “The
Haunted Bookshop” by Christopher Morley.
What a delightful book! It really should be
required reading for anyone contemplating
opening or buying a used bookstore.
Morley’s opinions on books, booksellers,
and book-buyers could still be considered
as valid today, nearly ninety years after he
first expressed them.
But then, the profession of bookselling, like
prostitution, law and politics really hasn’t
changed that much in the last five hundred
years, apart from the introduction of a few
procedural changes.
The story begins when a young man, Aubrey
Gilbert, enters a bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
called “Parnassus at Home”, with the intention
of convincing the owner, Roger Mifflin, to permit
him to set up an advertising campaign for his
store.
Mifflin’s answer is:
“By the bones of Tauchnitz! Look here, you
wouldn’t go to a doctor, a medical specialist,
and tell him he ought to advertise in papers and
magazines? A doctor is advertised by the bodies
he cures. My business is advertised by the minds
I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book
business is different from other trades. People
don’t know they want books. I can see just by
looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of
books but you are blissfully unaware of it!
People don’t go to a bookseller until some
serious mental accident or disease makes them
aware of their danger. Then they come here.
For me to advertise would be about as useful
as telling people who feel perfectly well that
they ought to go to the doctor.”
My thanks to Mr. Morley and his customers
for this and the following quotes.
“My dear chap, I understand the value of
advertising. But in my own case it would be
futile. I am not a dealer in merchandise but a
specialist in adjusting the book to the human
need. Between ourselves, there is no such
thing, abstractly, as a ‘good’ book. A book is
‘good’ only when it meets some human hunger
or refutes some human error. A book that is
good for me would very likely be punk for you.
My pleasure is to prescribe books for such
patients as drop in here and are willing to tell
me their symptoms.”
Asked if he is open in the evenings, Mr.
Mifflin replies: “Until ten o’clock. A great
many of my best customers are those who are
at work all day and can only visit bookshops
at night. The real book-lovers, you know, are
generally among the humbler classes. A man
who is impassioned with books has little time or
patience to grow rich by concocting schemes
for cozening his fellows.”
Upon telling young Gilbert about the meetings
of a booksellers’ club, “The Corn Cob Club”,
he states: “We have all sorts and conditions
of booksellers: one is a fanatic on the subject
of libraries. He thinks that every public library
should be dynamited. Another thinks that
moving pictures will destroy the book trade.
What rot! Surely everything that arouses
people’s minds, that makes them alert and
questioning, increases their appetite for books.”
The same may be said today in reference to
the influence of the Internet and video games
on the state and future of bookstores.
At the very next meeting of The Corn Cob Club,
Mifflin addresses a fellow bookseller:
“Your ailment, Jerry, is that you conceive yourself
as merely a tradesman. What I’m telling you
is that the bookseller is a public servant. He ought
to be pensioned by the state. The honour of his
profession should compel him to do all he can
to spread the distribution of good stuff.”
Another bookseller adds: “Still, Jerry has a
certain grain of truth to his credit. I get ten times
more satisfaction in selling a copy of Newton’s
“The Amenities of Book-Collecting” than I do
in selling a copy of–well, “Tarzan”; but it’s
poor business to impose your own private tastes
on your customers. All you can do is to hint
them along tactfully, when you get a chance,
toward the stuff that counts.”
Which begs the question: should the bookseller
recommend books, thereby shaping the
book-buyers reading habits?
A fourth bookseller comments: “When I see
the helpless pathos of most of them (customers),
who drift into a bookstore without the
slightest idea of what they want or what is
worth reading, I would disdain to take
advantage of their frailty. They are absolutely
at the mercy of the salesman. They will buy
whatever he tells them to. Now, the honourable
man, the high-minded man (by which I mean
myself) is too proud to ram some shimmering
stuff at them just because he thinks they
ought to read it. Let the boobs blunder around
and grab what they can. Let natural selection
operate. I think it is fascinating to watch them,
to see their helpless groping, and to study the
weird ways in which they make their choice.
Usually they will buy a book either because
they think the jacket is attractive, or because
it costs a dollar and a quarter instead of a
dollar and a half, or because they say they
saw a review of it. The “review” usually turns
out to be an ad. I don’t think one book-buyer
in a thousand knows the difference.”
“A gathering of booksellers is a pleasant
sanhedrim (actually a less-used spelling of
sanhedrin, the supreme council and highest
religious and legal authority of the ancient
Jewish nation) to attend. The members of
this ancient craft bear mannerisms and
earmarks just as definitely recognizable as
those of the cloak and suit business or any
other trade. They are likely to be a little–
shall we say–worn at the bindings, as
becomes men who have forsaken worldly
profit to pursue a noble calling ill rewarded
in cash. They are possibly a trifle
embittered, which is an excellent
demeanour for mankind in the face of
inscrutable heaven.”
The book continues with the introduction
of Miss Titania Chapman to the home
and bookstore of Mr. and Mrs. Mifflin.
Titania’s father, a customer of the
bookstore wants Mr. Mifflin to tutor
his daughter in the operation of a bookstore,
an education which he believes will counter
and improve on what she has learned at
a fancy finishing school.
Chapter VI is a charming account of Miss
Titania’s first day on the job, learning a
bit about the book business from Mr.
Mifflin. Then, as Mr. Morley acknowledges
in his original Preface to the book and for
which he even offers an apology to booksellers,
Miss Titania and Mr. Gilbert fell in love
and the two of them rather ran away
with the tale. A romantic mystery ensues.
Still, as my example quotes indicate,
this book will tickle the fancy of any
bibliophile.
Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was a
great man of letters, being, at times, a
humourist, novelist, playwright, poet,
essayist and editor. When Morley died
on March 28, 1957, the New York Times
and the New York Herald published this
personal message to his friends:
“Read, every day, something no one else
is reading. Think, every day, something no
one else is thinking. Do, every day,
something no one else would be silly
enough to do. It is bad for the mind to
continually be part of unanimity.”
Christopher Morley.
Footnote: a first printing of the 1919
edition of “The Haunted Bookshop”
is very difficult to find. A Very Good
copy in dust-jacket with all the
first-state points may sell for $500
or more. However, the book was
reprinted many times, even by Book-
of-the-Month Club, so a copy
shouldn’t be difficult to find for $10
to $20. Check your local bookstore.
Please take time to visit my website:
www.stillmanbooks.com
Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
regret is the one you didn’t make.
Talk soon.