PARISIAN BOOKSELLERS

Evening Post, Issue 88, 12 April 1924, Page 16

PARISIAN BOOKSELLERS

DEALING 'WITH ENGLISH BOOKS , AND PAPERS, h

'A writer in. the '"Figaro" comments half humorously and half plaintively on the progressive "anglicising" of Paris. He thinks it significant that, the booksellers who have•■ thesis; stalls in the'shape, of lock-up b'bxos'placed on the broad parapet of the.left baak of the .Seine!, and especially along the Quai "Malaquais and; Ihu Quai Conti, are making just at present a special -appeal to Jiaiglish.. customers, and.that one.of them iias put out a placard with the English words in bold lettering "Second-hand ' books bought and sold." Thejstoli is filled wholly with more or less dilapidated English volumes, cloth or paper-bound; and with old numbers of periodicals: • It is a common enough sight' to see : shabbily-dressed, book-lovers haunting the stalls of the* quais—aroidst "which, by.the way,' Anatole Franco, tho son of a' bookseller, and born in this very quarter of old Paris, fed the flame of his first literary enthusiasms—on tho look-put for bargains, pursuing the generally, elusive hope of finding some .overlooked -first edition of valuable manuscript.-, Tho English stall is' at least an addition to tho huntingground. * ■ " As that agreeable French writer on art and antiquity, M. Octave Uzanrie, reminds us, says a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," the book-boxes on the quais wero in the eighteenth' century a sort of centre where promenaders gathered and discussed the book of the moment, the writer of the day. Here, too, in those days,: English and French journals were on salej and it was at the . corner of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai Conti that the. first establishment bearing the name of the Cafe Anglais was started. English- writers who visited Paris used to meet there, and English newspapers such as the "London" Evening Post" and the "Daily Advertiser" could be obtained. Among Englishmen of the "eighteenth century who lingered among.the bookstalls of the Quai Conti was Laurence Sterne, and he has told us how, a conversation with a French officer having' brought to his mind the advice given by . Polonius 'to his son. ho went to one of the stalls and tried to buy a'set of Shakespeare. But the only set the bookseller had 'was one sent to him for binding by a French nobleman. "He loves, English books," the bookseller explained ; "and what, is more to his honour, he lovos the English too." One may hope that English book-buyers hear'tlie same pleasant sentiment on the quais today. - ' ■ -■ ; ■