For the last three years of the Second World War, while George Heywood Hill was in the Army, Lady Anne ran the shop with the assistance of the novelist Nancy Mitford. [4] In 1949 Elizabeth Forbes, the daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, joined the staff of the store where she worked prior to her career as a journalist, music critic, and musicologist. [5] John Saumarez Smith who had joined the staff straight from Cambridge in 1965, took up the reigns as manager in 1974, a position he held for over thirty years. [6] In 1991, the shop was bought by Nancy Mitford's brother-in-law, Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire. [7] Over the years he took on a series of poorly remunerated but bookish assistants, many of whom, inspired by his traditional approach to book-selling, went on to make their own names in the independent book trade. Saumarez Smith edited two collections of correspondence, which gave a fascinating glimpse into 20th-century literary London through the perspective of the distinguished, sometimes dysfunctional, bookshop staff. Kerridge, Jake (10 November 2020). "How the Queen's favourite bookshop is surviving against the odds". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 10 November 2020. Elaine Padmore (19 November 2014). "Elizabeth Forbes: Musicologist and critic who translated librettos and wrote nearly 100 obituaries for 'The Independent' ". The Independent.

After he left Heywood Hill, John continued to deal in books from John Sandoe and Maggs Bros. He was a natural writer who reviewed books widely and provided always considered advice to librarians and their patrons. Many across the book world will mourn him. Christopher Hibbert; Ben Weinreb (2008). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. pp.395–396. ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5 . Retrieved 11 July 2017. He joined Heywood Hill as an assistant to the splendidly named Handasyde (“Handy”) Buchanan, who had been taken on as a partner in 1945 by the shop’s founder, a gentle, bookish old Etonian. Buchanan had previously worked for another antiquarian bookshop in Curzon Street which had been bombed out; his wife Mollie was already working in Heywood Hill in charge of accounts.With her new found success, Nancy moved to Paris, but remained connected with Heywood Hill. They exchanged hundreds of letters of correspondence, with Mitford constantly gossiping about the literary world she now commanded, while Heywood Hill kept her updated on the ups and downs of running a bookshop in post-war London. Until her death from lymphoma in 1973, Nancy would always make time to visit the shop whenever she came to the city. John’s paternal great-grandfather, William Saumarez Smith, was the Primate of Australia, while his great-great-great grandfather, Joseph Smith, was William Pitt’s private secretary. On his mother’s side his grandfather was the theologian Canon Charles Raven, who became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, Master of Christ’s College and vice-chancellor of the university. In fact the clientele was drawn from a wider social milieu than what Saumarez Smith referred to as the “carriage trade”. And in his later years he had to put up with a new breed of City trader who came “looking for something flash-looking that costs a lot”. John Saumarez Smith, who has died aged 78, was for 34 years the managing director and presiding genius of Heywood Hill, the tiny bookshop in Curzon Street, Mayfair, which from its foundation in 1936 has been the favoured haunt of bibliophiles from across the English-speaking world.

Mitford’s early novels did not provide her with enough money with which to live securely, and much of her work served to further rip at the fraught threads of her family relationships. Following the poor reception of her early books and Britain once again entering a devastating war, Nancy became completely disillusioned with writing, and in the spring of 1942 took a job at a small bookshop that was a two and a half mile walk from her Maida Vale home. handsomely bound in full red crushed morocco, boards with 5 gilt line panels, spine richly panelled and lettered in gilt.

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Heywood Hill is a bookshop at 10 Curzon Street in the Mayfair district of London. [1] History [ edit ] In 1969 he married Laura, daughter of the architect Raymond Erith, who survives him with their two sons. Several tomes later, and with due deference to Stoppard and Wilde, Algy has taken the suggestion on board. Here you will discover why Ian Fleming never achieved his heart's desire, delve into the Guinness Affair, marvel at the fast and louche life of the ‘Peter Pan of Mayfair’ and accompany the author to - and then swiftly away from - a disastrous dinner with Princess Margaret. Alongside come despatches from the gold mining and oil industries and a reflection on the parlous state of humour in the modern world, among other eclectic gems from the pen of a true character. He would often put aside a copy of a book he thought might appeal to a particular customer, and those who lived abroad – or in rural seclusion – depended on him to send them the best of recently publications. “He possesses the uncanny ability,” observed a transatlantic admirer in The New York Times, “to send out of the blue the exact book one’s been wishing for, so closely does he follow his customers’ interests and development.” Follow Alan into Chatsworth's irresistible world of visionaries, pioneers, heroes, villains and English eccentrics, and celebrate the men and women who have shaped the history of the estate over five centuries. With his passionate knowledge of both the house and gardens, as well as his long-established relationship with the Cavendish family, Alan is the perfect guide with whom to explore the Palace of the Peaks.

The shop was opened by George Heywood Hill on 3 August 1936, with the help of Lady Anne Gathorne-Hardy, who would later become his wife. [2] [3] Algy Cluff OBE was born in 1940. He served for six years in the Army in West Africa, Cyprus and Borneo. A pioneer of North Sea oil exploration, he founded Cluff Oil in 1972. This lead to the discovery of the Buchan Field. There followed thirty years of exploration in the gold industry in Africa and the discovery and development of gold mines. He remains active in the oil business. Algy was the proprietor of The Spectator for five years and its Chairman for a further twenty. He was the proprietor of other magazines, including Apollo and the Literary Review.When Heywood Hill opened his eponymous bookshop, Nancy Mitford was not known for her writing but for her eccentric family – a cause célèbre as a result of their fevered embracing of all things Hitler, with sister Diana marrying fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosely (and later imprisoned alongside him as a danger to the king's realm). The Thirties had been difficult for Nancy. She had released a number of books that received neither acclaim nor sales, but caused much controversy within her inner circle, particularly Wigs on the Green – a savage satire of her family’s enthusiasm for fascism.