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Farmer, Bernard J.

Death of a Bookseller, [81] 85

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20240301093034 Chris-Saunders-on-Bernard-J.-Farmer,-Slightly-Foxed

Pulsing Hearts beneath the Tweed

Chris Saunders on Bernard J. Farmer, Death of a Bookseller

Antiquarian bookselling is not a famously perilous profession. In my nineteen years at Sotheran’s, the antiquarian bookdealer in London, I have never had a life insurance policy refused on the grounds of risk to life and limb, and I don’t face mortal danger in my quotidian round of bibliophile duties. It might, therefore, seem fanciful when I say that Bernard J. Farmer’s detective novel Death of a Bookseller (1958) manages to combine a devilish murder plot with a realistic depiction of the London antiquarian book trade, but I promise it isn’t. The book may be over sixty years old now, but much of what it reveals about the trade is as true today as it was then.

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