Once Upon a Tome

Bookseller Oliver Darkshire Photo credit: Joshua Williams

Episode 3

Oliver Darkshire is the author of Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller.

Released in 2022 to much acclaim, Once Upon a Tome is a memoir about Oliver’s experiences of working at Henry Sotheran’s Ltd – a quintessential antiquarian bookshop in Sackville Street in London, which has been in business since 1761.

Oliver’s book begins with him being hired as an apprentice bookseller. With a desk next to the front door, Oliver learns the peculiar ways of antiquarian bookselling including customers who never buy anything, collectors who can’t stop buying books, shoplifters in long coats who attempt to steal books, and book runners with boxes of books to sell.

Oliver was eventually given responsibility for Sotheran’s Twitter account and his off-the-wall tweets helped him get noticed by a major publisher.

We discuss how he joined Sotheran’s, the forgotten books in the shop’s cellar, a wide variety of customer types, Oliver’s own book collection and the shop’s connection to a ‘cursed’ book that lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Several books are mentioned in this episode, including:

Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire;

Shawn Bythell’s series of books about his Wigtown bookshop;

Traditions of Lancashire by John Roby.