Favourite London Market Places 2

Farringdon Road Book Stalls

The second and last part of Bill Lofts article (possibly unpublished) about London markets. This mainly deals with his search for books, comics and 'boy's books.' Loft's prose style is not exactly Nabokov but his enthusiasm and tireless research carries it along…there is much online about the dealer turned publisher Gerald Swan. Bill gives an affectionate portrait of him..

But easily the main attraction to me was the second-hand bookstall where I used to exchange my comics, and later boys papers. The proprietor was a Gerald Swan, later to become quite a famous publisher in our field of cheap paperback novels, comics, and boys papers, as well as Annuals which he named 'Albums'. These 'Swan Albums' were priced at 3/6d each - printed on the cover, but were sold at a shilling, when he probably still made a big profit on them. Mr Swan was really an extraordinary dressed man to be in charge of a wooden shabby bookstall.

Tall, thin, very distinguished looking with grey hair, a smart pin-striped suit, black bowler hat, and complete with usually a long black overcoat that he seemed to wear winter and summer. He wore a gold prince-nex, carried a rolled black umbrella as well as a pigskin brief case. In direct contrast to the roughly dressed costermongers on either side of him, he looked completely out of place in a common street market. Indeed he could have easily passed for a solicitor, or successful business man- though the latter he undoubtedly was, and who later dabbled on The Stock Exchange.

A Gerald Swan publication

His secondhand boys papers were as a rule sold for roughly halfprice though there were variations when they were much cheaper, as I seem to recall that the 4d Libraries were only a penny. But his real source of profit was in the exchange that was simply one copy for two of yours - two for one. When one considers the hundreds of customers who frequented his bookstall - in the long run the profit and amount of stock was enormous. No wonder that just before the last War he was able to set up business as a publisher.

Personally I have very happy memories of Gerald Swan, as he was a very genial friendly type of man, and indeed how he dressed a real gentleman. He had the characteristic of showing a customer a certain type of paper for their interest,