The author in front of the legendary John Sandoe Books in Chelsea.
By Richard Charkin, Columnist
I was brought up in London, Northwest London to be more precise. I now live in Hackney in the East End, almost as far from Olympia as it’s possible to be. My immigrant grandparents worked night and day to escape from Hackney. I can’t imagine what they’d have made of my return. “Meshugge” is a word that comes to mind.With luck, this year’s London Book Fair will be blessed with balmy Spring weather (publishing is, after all, an optimistic industry) which will allow some of you to abandon the halls and venture out into my favorite city. Of course you can visit the tourist attractions, enjoy the architecture, eat, drink, be merry but you might also like to see a few publishing highlights (or lowlights) in the less obvious places. If so, read on…
Literary Connections Abound
Let’s start nearest to Olympia in the extraordinary Victorian Brompton Cemetery where you will find the headstone of one of the great publishing entrepreneurs, John Wisden, founder of the most famous sports book in the world, on cricket, still going strong after 163 years.
Turn left at the South end of the cemetery and walk along the Fulham Road (note for visitors: King’s Road and Fulham Road are always prefaced by ‘the’ – no other roads merit this pretension). After a mile or so, you’ll reach the glorious art deco Michelin House, once the home of Heinemann, Secker & Warburg, Methuen, Mitchell Beazley, George Philip, Hamlyn, Octopus and a few others now blown to the corporate winds but still publishing in their chosen niches.
It’s a short walk from there to the King’s Road and one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic independent bookshops in the world, John Sandoe Books whose stock seems to be randomly distributed but always findable. It is a joy.
So far we have stayed in West London but now let’s head towards the center and explore the area around Covent Garden (as a vade mecum you might enjoy perusing Barry Turner’s entertaining and bawdy history of the area).
The literary connection might seem abstruse but check out the grandeur of the Garrick Club, founded in 1831, whose fortunes have been transformed by A.A. Milne’s legacy of Winnie the Pooh and the extraordinary profits generated by Disney’s various adaptations. Things have improved so much at the club that, after 193 years, their members voted to allow women to join… in 2024!
The Great Ormond Street Children’ hopsital features a statue of Peter Pan (Diarmuid Byron OConnor via wikimedia).
Not so far away is the world-renowned great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. This establishment shares few characteristics with the Garrick except that it also benefits from a literary connection.
In this case it is the royalties from J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan, which are a unique exception to the U.K. Copyright Act 1988. As a publisher it is hard to condone any exceptions to copyright, but it would surely be churlish to object to this one, which goes to support research and “give seriously ill children lives that are fuller, funner, and longer.”
A Westward walk will take you to Bedford Square, currently home of Bloomsbury Publishing and the Wylie Agency but erstwhile host of Jonathan Cape, Hodder & Stoughton, and the U.K. Publishers Association among many others.
On the front of 49 Bedford Square there is a blue plaque (a tradition in London of commemorating famous people’s residences) celebrating Ram Mohun, the editor of several Bengali and Persian newspapers and dubbed the founder of the Indian Renaissance in the 19th Century. In addition, he led the movement to abolish suttee where widows (apparently voluntarily) threw themselves to their deaths on their husband’s funeral pyre.
Walking North and East takes you to the Kings Cross area via the British Library. Not so long ago, along with similar areas around major rail stations in other countries, Kings Cross was plagued with large numbers of homeless, drug pushers, and sex workers. This has all changed with a huge redevelopment project which has resulted in a vibrant, modern, technical, and cultural sector housing the Guardian newspaper, a concert hall, St. Martins School of Art, and, from my point of view most important, the U.K. headquarters of the leading STM and educational publisher, SpringerNature, not too far from the illustrated publishers, Phaidon and Thames & Hudson.
Head East (Like the London Book Fair)
Richard Charkin
Catch a bus going South towards London Bridge (where HarperCollins is based), hop off at Bank and hop on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway), and discover that London and publishing has extended Eastwards.
It would be worth exploring the area around the Excel Center in advance of London Book Fair 2027. When this move was first proposed more than a decade ago the idea was stillborn. But the world has changed, and so has our industry.
Finally, I encourage you to return westward on one of the many boats on the Thames and enjoy the ride on one of the great waterways of the world, which has featured in the works of many authors from Charles Dickens to C.J.Sansom.
London is so much more than its tourist attractions particularly for curious publishers. Enjoy my home city and have an enjoyable (and profitable) book fair.
Heading to the London Book Fair? Check out more our London Book Fair Preview:
London Book Fair 2026: Program Highlights