KING CAROL’S BOOKSHOP

Southland Times, Issue 23166, 6 April 1937, Page 8

KING CAROL’S BOOKSHOP

“ROYAL CULTURAL FOUNDATION” King Carol recently opened a bookshop in Bucharest. It is on the famous Calea Victoriei, opposite the Royal Palace. Ever since the restoration of his throne in 1930, one of King Carol’s greatest ambitions was to improve the intellectual standard of his subjects. He declined to tackle this problem in a practical manner, and established a publishing concern, financed and controlled by him. This unusual enterprise which is known as the “Royal Cultural Foundation,” publishes literary and scientific works by Rumanian and foreign authors, organizes concerts by world celebrities as well as by promising local musicians, exhibits works of art and issues two important magazines, Albina (the Bee), a large circulation periodical designed for the peasants, and The Royal Foundation Review, the most serious Rumanian political and literary monthly. Both King Carol and young Crown Prince Michael contribute from time to time articles to these magazines, writes the special correspondent of The London Observer.

In addition to these activities, the Royal Foundation has now opened the most up-to-date bookshop in the Balkans. Students and intellectuals in straitened circumstances may make their purchases there at substantial discounts.

Many an unknown writer whose works were rejected by other establishments has been encouraged by King Carol’s publishing concern, which has become the Mecca of the Rumanian intelligentsia. Thanks to this far-sighted policy, the Foundation has launched numerous best-sellers. Its considerable profits are reinvested in. the enterprise, with the result that it is constantly expanding, to the great satisfaction of the King.