Blackwell's
Blackwell’s is a British book retail chain. It was founded in Oxford in 1879 and operated 35 stores in 2019. The chain has about 1,000 employees and an annual turnover of nearly 75 million US dollars . In addition to general bookstores, Blackwell's also operates stores dedicated to medical, academic, or artistic publications.
history
The first store was founded on January 1, 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell, son of the first local librarian , and initially stocked rare and second-hand books. The flagship store originally only comprised one room, but was expanded early on by taking over three neighboring shops.
In 1897, Mensæ Secundæ: verses written in Balliol College was the first publication of the chain, and since 1939 scientific and academic works have also been published by the in-house publishing house Blackwell Publishing . In 1915 Blackwell's published Goblin's Feet, one of the first poems by JRR Tolkien .
In 1966 the Norrington Room was opened, which extends in the basement to below Trinity College . It comprises 5 km of bookshelves and 930 m² of sales space for over 160,000 books, making it the largest book sales room in the world at the time in the Guinness Book of Records .
It was not until the 1990s that the chain expanded and increasingly opened shops in other cities, mostly university towns. At the beginning of the 21st century there were over 70 stores in England , Scotland and Wales . Since 1995 books have also been offered on the Internet.
In 2007 Blackwell Publishing was sold to John Wiley & Sons for £ 572 million and now operates there under the name Wiley-Blackwell .
shops
Blackwell's has 35 stores (as of 2019) in Aberdeen , Belfast , Bradford , Bristol , Cambridge , Canterbury , Cardiff , Derby , Dundee , Edinburgh (3 ×), Exeter , Huddersfield , Keele , Lancaster , Leeds , Lincoln , Liverpool , London ( 2 ×), Manchester (2 ×), Newcastle upon Tyne , Nottingham (3 ×), Oxford (5 ×), Reading , Sheffield and St Andrews .
Blackwell's Rare Books
The chain acquires and sells rare and old books under the Blackwell's Rare Books brand . The oldest works in the current inventory, which includes over 3,000 books and publications, can be dated to around 1150, 1270 and 1415. Some of the most valuable works in the collection include Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes with a sales value of £ 90,000, Comedies, Histories and Tragedies by William Shakespeare with a sales value of £ 85,000 or Summa de casibus poenitentiae et matrimonio. by Raimund von Penyafort with a retail value of £ 45,000.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Blackwell UK Limited at D&B Hoovers , accessed March 12, 2019
- ↑ a b Blackwell’s Rare Books - Our History at blackwells.co.uk
- ^ Blackwell's in Lonely Planet , accessed March 12, 2019
- ↑ Blackwell's Rare Books - Our Stock at blackwell's.co.uk