"Bookshop Memories" Print

We’ve made a print of the 1936 essay “Bookshop Memories” by George Orwell, written about his time working in a bookshop. Anyone who loves bookshops or has worked retail will definitely identify with this timeless essay on dealing with the most fickle of creatures, the shopping public.

Limited to 50 hand numbered copies. Designed by @ang_yen, illustrated by @rahb_art and screenprinted by @deetchprints. Each one signed by Ang and numbered by me. It looks about 12" x 18" but I haven't measured it yet!

From the essay:
“Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop. For example, the dear old lady who ‘wants a book for an invalid’ (a very common demand, that), and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy. Unfortunately she doesn’t remember the title or the author’s name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover. But apart from these there are two well-known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the decayed person smelling of old breadcrusts who comes every day, sometimes several times a day, and tries to sell you worthless books. The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has not the smallest intention of paying. In our shop we sold nothing on credit, but we would put books aside, or order them if necessary, for people who arranged to fetch them away later. Scarcely half the people who ordered books from us ever came back. It used to puzzle me at first. What made them do it? They would come in and demand some rare and expensive book, would make us promise over and over again to keep it for them, and then would vanish never to return. But many of them, of course, were unmistakable paranoiacs.”

Amazing how little has changed!