Mansion House, Cheapside._]

The district more or less immediately contiguous to the Bank of England
was for a long period a favourite bookselling locality, but heavy rents
and crowded thoroughfares have completely killed the trade in the heart
of commercial London. Early in the seventeenth century, Pope's Head
Alley, a turning out of Cornhill, contained a number of booksellers' and
publishers' shops. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Thomas
Guy, with a capital of about L200, started selling books at 'the little
corner house of Lombard Street and Cornhill'; but his wealth was not
derived from this source. It is interesting to note, however, that this
little corner shop existed so recently as 1833 or 1834. Alexander
Cruden, of 'Concordance' fame, settled in London in 1732, and opened a
bookstall under the Royal Exchange, and it was whilst here that he
compiled the 'Concordance' which ruined him in business and deranged his
mind. William Collins, whose catalogues for many years 'furnished
several curiosities to the literary collectors,' started selling books
in Pope's Head Alley, in or about 1778, but was burnt out in the
following year, when he removed to Exchange Alley, where he remained
until the last decade of the last century. John Sewell, who died in 1802
(aged sixty-eight), was one of the last to sport the rubric posts, and
his shop in Cornhill was a highly popular resort with book-buyers; he
was succeeded by another original character in the person of James
Asperne. J. and A. Arch were in Cornhill contemporaneously with Asperne,
and it was to these kindly Quakers that Thomas Tegg turned, and not in
vain, after being summarily dismissed from Lane's, in Leadenhall Street,
and with whom he remained for some years. It was not until some time
after he had started on his own account that Tegg commenced his nightly
book-auctions at 111, Cheapside, an innovation which resulted in Tegg
finding himself a fairly rich man. His next move was to the old Mansion
House, once the residence of the Lord Mayor, and here he met with an
increased prosperity and popularity. He was elected a Common Councillor
of the ward of Cheap, and took a country house at Norwood. Up to the
close of 1840, Tegg had issued 4,000 works on his own account (chiefly
'remainders'), and not 'more than twenty were failures.' The more
noteworthy second-hand booksellers of this neighbourhood half a century
ago were Charles Davis, whose shop was at 48