Minding My Own Business

Local Description

second-hand. good.

Description

Here is a book which will fascinate alike the book collector and the casual reader. Nothing is more interesting than an expert talking shop - and how well Percy Muir talks it! He tells the story of the firm of Elkin Mathews, the antiquarian booksellers, with which he had been associated since 1930. Founded by Charles Elkin Mathews and the legendary John Lane, it survived two world wars, the great slump of the thirties, many changing fashions in book collecting, and even the gloriously unorthodox methods of its partners. They were, as Percy Muir says a `rum lot' - enthusiasts, experts, eccentrics. There was A. W. Evans, ex-curate and ex-journalist; H. V. Marrot; Greville Worthington, who had a passion for ancient gramophone records and vintage cars; and Eddie Gathorne-Hardy who, when he missed a train, invariably bought a car to drive to his destination and sold it at the other end. We read about the occasion when the notorious T. J. Wise found himself more forged against than forging; about Percy Muir's disastrous libel case and his trips to Nazi Germany to buy musical first editions