AFTER 200 YEARS

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 441, 24 May 1937, Page 5

AFTER 200 YEARS

Famous Bookshop Closes Ellis’s, the New Bond Street book. "sKop, London, in which business had been, carried on since 1728, was doted recently. Founded by John Brindley, the old shop, with its double bow-window, had been associated with generations of literary figures. Some of Alexander Pope’s poems were published by Brindley, and Horace Walpole mentions in hit' letters his frequent visits to the shop (after it was taken over by James Dobson In 1758. ( Dr. Johnson and Mrs Thrale, afterI wards Mrs. Piozza, were among the i firm’s mott constant customers. Ellis’s still treasure a letter written by Robson to Mrs. Piozzi after Johnson’s death in 1784, asking her for biographical materials. Mrs. Piozzi, however, refused. The strained character of her relations with Johnson after her second marriage are well known. Between 1810 and 1830 the shop j was run in partnership by Nornabille and Fell. Then, until 1871, it was carried, on by the brothers Boone, the immediate predecessors of the flnt Frederick Ellis. The 19th century patrons of the shop were no less distinguished. The Boones published Swinburne’c “Ode on the Birth of the French Republic.” The Pre-Raphaelites were all close, ty associated with Ellis’s. The floor Of the back-part of the shop was covered with the now sadly worn linoleum specialty designed, by William Morris. To Ruskin, Ellis was familiarly known as "Papa Ellis.” Tennyson and Gladstone wj.fd also cill in fca literary ev: nII • 1} b , 4z hn .„ e new or rare vo.it ,:e