Found on the slightly worn spine of a Kelly's Suffolk 1922 a 'books bought' advertisement by one John Jeffery of 35 High Street, Barnes (London). Kelly's was a sort of yellow pages listing trades and residents by streets and some are much prized by local historians and collectors. The ad reads:
BOOKS BOUGHT. Large or small collections also prints, portraits, engravings etc., Libraries Catalogued and Valued. Any Distance. Write To-day. John Jeffery, 35 High Street, Barnes, S.W. 13.No phone number so first approaches were made by mail in a leisurely way. I had thought John Jeffery was something to do with George Jeffery of the unforgettable book barrows on London's Farringdon Road - the Jeffery's were trading from about 1880 until the late 1990s. However all Jeffery's were called George and the last street trader was George IV and his son a familiar figure at PBFA bookfairs who also trades online is, I guess, George V.
John Jeffery seems to have flourished in the early 1920s and is only to be found once at Google Books in a 1922 Book Auction Records in a list of dealers. He is next to the legendary dealer Christopher Millard of Abercorn Place St John's Wood, the dealer who set AJA Symons on his quest for Baron Corvo and a pal of the young Anthony Powell to whom he wrote: "A sordid business selling
books, but very amusing." I like the sound of Jeffery's Catalogue no 324:
MSS., Association Books, Presentation Copies, etc., including the Original
MS. Volumes of Shelley's Poetical Works, with Notes and a Memoir by Rosetti,
3 vols., 1868-9 £200, ;; Museum Hermeticum, Francofurti, 1678, Arthur
Edward Waite's own copy used for his translation, £65 ; Dee — Relation of
what passed between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, folio, 1659, ; etc., etc.
Assuming 15 catalogues a year he must have been trading for at least 20 years. There were rich pickings in country houses after the Great War and I like to think that Jeffery's bold speculation in spine advertising paid off and he hit such a rich hoard of books that he was able to retire in luxury shortly thereafter...
Interesting. John Jeffery appears in the first ever (1896) "The Bookman" Directory of Booksellers, Publishers and Authors, with entries under both "booksellers" and "Secondhand Booksellers". At that time he was trading from 60 East Road, City Road, London.
ReplyDelete35 High Street, Barnes is now T.H. Sanders & Sons, Funeral Directors and Memorial Consultants. An attractive row of shops there.
ReplyDeleteThanks Howard and Thanks Fnarf. It looks like this John Jeffery was sometihng to do with the Farringdon Road Jeffreys. In the obituary of the George Jeffery who died in 1994 'The Independent' note '...(his) death aged 69 signals the end of an era. Both his father and grandfather had worked the barrows before him, setting up in East Street in 1880, then moving to Farringdon Road just before the First World War.' Maybe they were like the Weinsteins in Los Angeles with different members of the family setting up bookshops and book operations of various styles in different parts of the City. Dynastic booksellers...
ReplyDelete. Thanks for this nice article.
ReplyDeleteJust to add that The International Directory of Second-hand Booksellers and Bibliophile's Manual 1894 records John Jeffery as having commenced business in 1881.
ReplyDelete