Collet's Bookshop
Collet's Bookshop was founded in 1934 by Eva Collet Reckitt. The bookshop specialised in political science, Russian and Eastern Europe literature, journals, feminism, and general titles. It stocked 20,000 titles.
It began when Reckitt took over the "Bomb Shop" in Charing Cross Road and renamed it "Collet's - the Political Bookshop." The original "Bomb Shop" was founded by Francis Henderson. This shop was known for its radical clientele, described by Reckitt as the haunt of "advanced poets and elderly anarchists."
Eva Reckitt expanded Collet's rapidly, opening additional shops in Glasgow, Manchester, and Cardiff in the mid-1930s. These bookshops got involved in major causes of the time, including the defence of the Spanish Republic and campaigns against fascism.
By the mid-20th century, Collet's regional shops had closed, consolidating operations in Central London. Collet's in London continued to thrive with specialist shops for Russian, Chinese, and multilingual books, along with a record shop, an arts and handicrafts shop, and a secondhand bookshop.
In 1976, Collet's opened their International Bookshop in Charing Cross Road, incorporating the Russian Bookshop and the Folk Record Shop.
In the mid-1980s, Collet's London Bookshop was set to close, with its premises taken over by Collet's Penguin Bookshop. The management aimed to transfer the role of the London shop to the International shop. However, many staff expressed concerns about maintaining the non-sectarian nature of the original London shop in this new setting.
Sources:
The Radical Bookseller, Issue 75, 1991
The Radical Bookseller, No. 33, July/August 1984
The Radical Bookseller, Issue 39, April/May 1985
Radical Bookshops Listing, Radical Bookshop History Project (November 2023) [Available online here, accessed 13.05.2025]
