Selling books, spreading ideas. Left-wing booksellers as political educators in Interwar Britain
Abstract
This paper looks at left-wing booksellers’ strategies and questions their effectiveness. It
highlights their primary commitment to workers’ education through the provision of cheap and
“good” political books to the “New Reading Public” – the book trade usually referred to the
working class in those terms. But left-wing bookshops had broader aims and at times became
places where a specific brand of popular politics came to life. Booksellers tried to alter the
perception of bookshops as austere and exclusive places and their shops became meeting places.
Some reading rooms were opened, exhibitions, book club meetings and conferences were
organised but there were also informal social events, like dances. In bookshops, sociability and political education were enmeshed.
This paper, therefore, challenges the tendency to overlook the importance of booksellers
as political mediators and educators, but it also questions their influence. While these
bookshops were intended for the workers, what type of audience did they really attract? How
could their role as educators be combined with the practical necessities of shop-keeping?