ars at Hodgson's, and possessed a remarkable taste for, and knowledge
of, books. He left Hodgson's and started on his own account in the old
ramshackle house already referred to. This shop presented so
unfavourable an exterior that even the Income-tax Fiend never 'called
in,' although at one time there were several thousands of pounds' worth
of books in it. Hutt did a very extensive trade, not only in this
country, but in America. He had an especial aptitude at completing sets
of particular authors--Landor, Leigh Hunt, Byron, Shelley--and
contributed much to the prevailing taste for modern first editions. A
younger brother, Mr. F. H. Hutt, has been for some years established at
10, Clement's Inn Passage, within a few yards of the old shop. The
associations of the past half-century of this neighbourhood include two
other well-known firms of booksellers. Theophilus Noble, who had removed
from 114, Chancery Lane, was at 79, Fleet Street for some years until
his death in 1851, and a member of the same family is still a
second-hand bookseller opposite St. Mary-le-Strand Church. Reeves and
Turner removed from Noble's old house in Chancery Lane, to the house on
the west side of Temple Bar and adjoining it on the north, erected on
the site of the famous old bulk-shop, the last of its race, where at one
time Crockford, 'Shell-fishmonger and gambler,' lived. When Temple Bar
was removed, this shop came down, and Reeves and Turner (who for the
second time had to bow to the necessities of 'improvements') opened
their well-known place on the south side of the Strand, facing St.
Clement's Church. Their spacious shop here for about a quarter of a
century was a famous book-haunt, and one of the very few successful ones
which have existed in a crowded thoroughfare. It always contained an
immense variety of good and useful books, priced at exceedingly moderate
amounts, and the poorer book-lover could always venture, generally
successfully, on suggesting a small reduction in the prices marked
without being trampled in the dust as a thief and a robber. A year or
two ago, when the lease of the shop expired, Messrs. Reeves and Turner
bibliopolically ceased to exist--there not being a Reeves or a Turner in
the Chancery Lane firm of booksellers of that name--but Mr. David
Reeves, a son of Mr. William Reeves, started in Wellington Street,
Strand, the latter, the _doyen_ of London booksellers, occupying a
portion of the house as a publisher and a d