John Smith & Son is a United Kingdom academic bookseller, based in Ringwood.
Founded in 1751, it is the oldest bookselling company in the English-speaking world. [1] [2] It was based for many years at 57–61 St. Vincent Street in Glasgow, which was also its principal retail outlet. A circulating library (established by Smith as Glasgow's first circulating library and Scotland's second overall) ultimately evolved into the academic bookselling arm of the business. From 1751 its chairmen have been three Smiths, three Knoxes and Robert Clow (1934-2022) who became the first chairman in 2000 of the continuing John Smith Group. [3] [4]
The St. Vincent Street shop, along with the general retail part of the business closed in 2000. However as part of the JS Group [5] it continues to trade as an academic bookseller, with campus outlets including Glasgow University, Strathclyde University and the University of London in the UK as well as overseas.
Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet, playwright, publisher, librarian and impresario of early Enlightenment Edinburgh. Ramsay's influence extended to England, foreshadowing the reaction that followed the publication of Percy's Reliques. He was on close terms with the leading men of letters in Scotland and England. He corresponded with William Hamilton of Bangour, William Somervile, John Gay and Alexander Pope.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1751.
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.
Hatchards is an English bookshop claiming to be the oldest in the United Kingdom, founded on Piccadilly in 1797 by John Hatchard. After one move, it has been at the same location on Piccadilly next to Fortnum & Mason since 1801, and the two stores are also neighbours in St. Pancras railway station as of 2014. It has a reputation for attracting high-profile authors and holds three royal warrants granted by King Charles III, Queen Elizabeth II, and Prince Philip respectively.
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process.
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.
Bowes & Bowes was a bookselling and publishing company based in Cambridge, England.
Sampson Low was a bookseller and publisher in London in the 19th century.
Sir Tim Waterstone is a British bookseller, businessman and author. He is the founder of Waterstones, the United Kingdom-based bookseller retail chain, the largest in Europe.
Peter Robert Drummond (1802–1879) was a Scottish businessman and biographer.
The Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland (BA) is a trade body founded to promote retail bookselling in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It operates the National Book Token scheme in the UK and sponsors the Whitbread Award The BA represents 95% of British retail booksellers. The BA operates the Batch payments system, an electronic purchasing interface for independent bookshops.
Events from the year 1751 in Scotland.
James Robert Tyrrell was an Australian bookseller, art dealer, publisher and author. He enjoyed a career of seven decades in the booktrade and was esteemed in his era as the "doyen of Sydney booksellers". He wrote a standard history of early bookselling in Australia entitled Old Books, Old Friends, Old Sydney.
Albert Henry Spencer, often referred to as A. H. Spencer, was an Australian bookseller. He was a specialist in antiquarian bookselling and Australiana and established the Hill of Content bookshop in Melbourne, one of that city's "finest bookshops". He has been called "one of the last links with an heroic age of Australian bookselling and collecting".
The selling of books dates back to ancient times. The founding of libraries in c.300 BC stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers. In Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library, and Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade.
Marion Elza Dodd (1883–1961) was an American bookseller, author, librarian, and professor. Dodd co-founded the National Association of College Bookstores in 1923.
Deighton, Bell, & Company was a British firm of booksellers and publishers located in Cambridge, England. It enjoyed a long and close association with the University of Cambridge. In 1978 it celebrated two centuries in the book business and, along with two other booksellers Heffers and Bowes & Bowes, the firm contributed to "making Cambridge a prestigious centre of bookselling".
James Sibbald (1745/47–1803) was a Scottish bookseller, publisher, journal editor, and author, active in Edinburgh. The son of a farmer, he started in life as a farm labourer, and later became employed in the shop of Charles Elliot, bookseller. In 1783 he went into the bookselling business on his own. He founded the Edinburgh Magazine and edited the Edinburgh Herald, wrote articles on antiquarian subjects, and published the Chronicle of the Poetry of Scotland (1802).
Publications Distribution Cooperative (PDC) was set up in 1976 to distribute radical, socialist, feminist, green/ecology and community publications in Britain to the book and newsagent trade.
Henry Sotheran Ltd is a bookshop in London, England, claiming to be the oldest continuously operating bookshop in the United Kingdom and the oldest antiquarian bookshop in the world. It is located at 18 Upper Brook Street in the Mayfair area of London.