Piccadilly is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway westward. St James's is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. Piccadilly is just under 1 mile (1.6 km) in length, and it is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London.
W & G Foyle Ltd. is a bookseller with a chain of seven stores in England. It is best known for its flagship store in Charing Cross Road, London. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and of number of titles on display. It was bought by Waterstones in 2018.
Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Waterstones shop sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products.
Blackwell UK, also known as Blackwell's and Blackwell Group, is a British academic book retailer and library supply service owned by Waterstones. It was founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, after whom the chain is named, on Broad Street, Oxford. The brand now has a chain of 18 shops, and an accounts and library supply service. It employs around 1000 staff in its divisions.
Ottakar's was a chain of bookshops in the United Kingdom founded in 1987 by James Heneage. Following a takeover by the HMV Group in 2006, the chain was merged into the Waterstone's brand.
Simpsons of Piccadilly was a large retail store situated at 203-206 Piccadilly in central London. It was created by Alexander Simpson and architect Joseph Emberton. When it opened in April 1936 it was the largest menswear store in Britain, and is now a Grade I listed building due to its innovative construction. Its original purpose was to house the entire range of clothing provided by the tailoring company S. Simpsons and DAKS. It was later purchased by the Waterstones chain of bookshops, and currently serves as their flagship store.
Fortnum & Mason is an upmarket department store in London, England. The main store is located at 181 Piccadilly in the St James's area of London, where it was established in 1707 by William Fortnum and Hugh Mason. There are additional stores at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras railway station and Heathrow Airport in Greater London, at K11 Musea in Hong Kong, as well as various stockists worldwide. Fortnum & Mason is privately owned by Wittington Investments Limited.
James Thin Ltd was a British bookshop chain, founded by James Thin in 1848. It operated for 154 years, during which time it was run by five generations of the Thin family. Starting from a single shop in Edinburgh, it grew to a national concern with 35 branches throughout Scotland and England. In 2002, following a period of rapid expansion, it went into voluntary administration, after which most of its shops were purchased by other companies in the book trade.
Dillons was a British bookseller founded in 1936, named after its founder and owner Una Dillon. Originally based in Bloomsbury in London, the company expanded under subsequent owners Pentos in the 1980s into a bookselling chain across the United Kingdom. In 1995 Pentos went into receivership and sold Dillons to Thorn EMI, which immediately closed 40 of the 140 Dillons bookstore locations. Of the remaining 100 stores, most kept the name Dillons, while the remainder were Hatchards and Hodges Figgis. Within Thorn EMI, Dillons was placed in the HMV Group, which had been a division of Thorn EMI since 1986. EMI demerged from Thorn in August 1996, and Dillons-HMV remained an EMI holding. Dillons was subsumed under rival chain Waterstones' branding in 1999, at which point the brand ceased to exist.
Hodges Figgis is a long-operating bookshop in central Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1768, it is probably the third-oldest functioning bookshop in the world, after the Livraria Bertrand of Lisbon (1732) and Pennsylvania's Moravian Book Shop (1745). It was moved and expanded numerous times, and arrived at 56 Dawson Street in 1979, and gradually expanded to take its current form of four floors at 56-58 Dawson Street in 1992. It is mentioned in James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses, at the time of which it would have been situated at 104 Grafton Street, and the novel Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, and in other writings.
Swaine London, known previously as Swaine Adeney Brigg, is one of the oldest names in luxury goods and has traded in London's St James's for over 270 years. The House remains one of the most celebrated and decorated makers and it is the ultimate destination for traditional luxury leather goods, elegant Brigg umbrellas and all sorts of hats from Herbert Johnson.
Swan & Edgar Ltd was a department store, located at Piccadilly Circus on the western side between Piccadilly and Regent Street established in the early 19th century and closed in 1982.
Borders (UK) Ltd., also known as Borders & Books etc., was established as a Borders Group subsidiary in 1998, and in 2007 became independent of the US parent company. At its peak after separation from the US parent, it traded from its 41 Borders and 28 BOOKS etc. shops with over one million square feet of retail space, taking around 8% of the retail bookselling market. In 2008 and 2009 the store numbers were reduced before the collapse of the chain. They also operated one single branch in Ireland, but closed this early in 2009. On 26 November 2009 it was announced that Borders (UK) had gone into administration. All stores closed on 24 December 2009.
Clarence Charles Hatry was an English company promoter, financier, bankrupt, bookseller and publisher. The fall of the Hatry group in September 1929, which had been worth about £24 million, is cited as a contributing factor to the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
DAKS is a British luxury fashion house, founded in 1894 by Simeon Simpson in London. It is one of only 15 firms to have held royal warrants from three members of the Royal Family. Officially granted to DAKS' Simpson Piccadilly store in 1956 was the royal warrant of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, followed by that of the Queen in 1962 and Charles, Prince of Wales in 1982.
The Hodges Figgis Trophy was presented to the winner of the All-Ireland Higher Education Senior Gaelic football Championship. The annual match was played between the Sigerson Cup champion and the Trench Cup Champion.
The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow is the debut novel of British children's author Katherine Woodfine, initially published by Egmont Publishing in June 2015. The novel is the first book in The Sinclair's Mysteries, a quartet of mystery-adventure novels set in Edwardian England.The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow was Waterstones Children's Book of the Month in June 2015. The novel was inspired by Katherine's love of classic children's adventure stories, E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew.
John Hatchard (1769–1849) was an English publisher and bookseller, in Piccadilly, London. The Hatchards bookshop there is still in business.
H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd. was a prominent publisher, bookseller, and lender of books and journals, based in London. The company played a significant role in the field of medical and scientific publishing throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. It occupied several premises in Gower Street and Gower Place in Bloomsbury, close to University College London (UCL), until it was acquired and dissolved by Pentos in 1989.
