Collet's International Bookshop

Collet's International Bookshop in central London stocked 20,000 titles and specialised in political science, Russian and Eastern European imported literature, journals, and feminism.

The bookshop combined radical political titles with bestsellers. Despite financial losses, the bookshop remained operational due to its profitable radical book section (which The Radical Bookseller claimed subsidised the imported books).

In 1981 The Radical Bookseller journal wrote:

'Collets International is the large bookshop you may have gone into while searching for their more famous London shop or the BFI.... opened 5 years ago to considerable ballyhoo, the shop is a curious creature. A large section of radical politics rests uneasily with bestsellers and soft porn camera books. And one side of the shop is devoted entirely to Russian and East European titles.

The shop is the inheritor of Collet's old Russian shop and many of the staff moved to the new site when it was opened. These staff, the 'right' are generally older, communist party members and have consistently supported the management's attempts to turn the shop into one of the worst run bookshops in central London, after Foyles.'

There were significant internal challenges, including poor working conditions and lack of staff training. In 1983, a union dispute was resolved favourably for the staff, who were members of the USDAW union.

Sources:
The Radical Bookseller, No. 10, Nov/Dec 1981
The Radical Bookseller, No. 63, Jan/Feb 1983
The Radical Bookseller, Issue 75, 1991

Radical Bookshops Listing, Radical Bookshop History Project (November 2023) [Available online here, accessed 13.05.2025]