Henry Sotheran Ltd
@Sotherans
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Antiquarian booksellers in business since 1761. We sell old books. Rare books. Unusual books. Books with mysterious pasts. Tweets by Oliver (he/him).
London, UK - W1K 7PU
Joined January 2012
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
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Pinned Tweet
so, the cat is out of the bag...we're moving! this will be our last Christmas in Sackville Street, where we've been since 1936, but as the building is being redeveloped it's time to move on, dig up all the skeletons, and find somewhere new, ideally that doesn't leak as much 🤔
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the disturbing lack of time travellers arriving to stop 2020 happening suggests we never actually invent it
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the older I get, the more I understand that "acquire a number of similar things so we can put them in a row and admire them" is some kind of fundamental universal human impulse that underlies a great deal of our behaviour
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"I bought another book"
- transactional
- people will ask if you REALLY need more books
- reminds you of your bank balance
"I paid a terrible price for this knowledge"
- classy Faustian vibes
- intimidating
- implies all books are priceless treasures. which they are.
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If you ever feel bad about yourself, consider that three days trapped in a cabin with lord byron was enough to traumaspawn two *distinct* schools of supernatural horror story
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in the spirit of the age, and because I couldn't rest until I had done it, I present
Trapped In A Cabin With Lord Byron, the RPG
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losing my mind over the victorians attempting to industrially manufacture spider silk but having to stop because the spiders wouldn't stop biting all the scientists and eating each other
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HISTORIAN: they were rarely seen apart
ME: yes
HISTORIAN: one carried the other's poetry to his death
ME: Yes
HISTORIAN: they wanted to be buried together
ME: YES
HISTORIAN: these two men were close friends
ME: NO
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lol so today this bookstore is having what could be its first health & safety inspection in about 258 years and reader I am crying with laughter
they sent a very helpful man who started off super cheery but 1 hour later is acting like he's trapped in a SAW movie
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HUMAN: oh look objects
🟢🟢🟧🟢🔺🔷🔺
HUMAN: I have organized them
🔺🔺🟢🟢🟢🔷🟧
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romance idea: a vampire fakes their own death once or twice a century (before anyone gets suspicious) but every time they have to buy their entire library back under a new name and identity, and over several generations the local bookseller family starts to get suspicious
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“He asked you to shoot at people who weren’t shooting back,” growled Vimes, striding forward, “That makes him insane, wouldn’t you say?”
“They are throwing stones, Sarge,” said Colon.
“So? Stay out of range”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
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I think what The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde really teaches us is that you can make as many evil alter egos as you like but the academic credentials do not transfer
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today I get to discreetly drop off a package of occult books at a train platform in an exchange with the butler of a man I've never met which should give you an idea firstly of the lengths your bookseller will go to for you and secondly how much of a caricature my life has become
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we are rapidly demonstrating in real time the second most powerful of human impulses after "organizing things" which appears to be "war over how things should be organized"
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quietly raising a glass to everyone who had to spend Christmas by themselves this year, with a helpful reminder that no-one with a book in hand is ever truly alone because if all else fails you can hurl it at someone from a window
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ok so it occurs to me only in hindsight that people may have strong feelings about what order the shapes should go in
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I cannot believe I need to say this but no we cannot find you the first edition of the bible it doesn't matter how much money you offer I beg you please stop asking and think about it for a moment
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sorry I missed your email but I didn't look at my inbox over the weekend because I refuse to participate in the notion that there is any such thing as an out of hours rare book emergency
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did our bookshop just get delivered a cease and desist from aziraphale 😂
@neilhimself
and
@terryandrob
the fandom is out of control, which I have no complaints about but good heavens
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PUBLISHER: (looking at the manuscript) so it's a book for children?
RICHARD ADAMS: imagine the cold, political brutality of a rabbit dystopia
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I won't lie, I am vastly entertained by both the nihilism and the hopeful countertheories
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MANAGER: oliver what have you started on twitter this time
ME: shapes 😃
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its the weekend, so it's time for another game, is it not?
Inspired by one of the worst house guests in history, I present:
"Trapped in Your House due to Hans Christian Andersen" the rpg
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it's pride month so it counts as work to remind you that the past is extremely queer, and we know this because LGBTQ+ people historically spent a lot of time writing extremely thinly veiled books about it right under everyone's noses, turn over a rare book and you find a gay
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"I need to do some research at the library"
- unassuming
- low impact on family gatherings
- people demanding you return
"I must commune with the dead for their wisdom"
- necromancer chic
- blame inaccuracies on grandma
- no-one will question fancy robes or long absences
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the other day a very nice lady came in with her grandson because she was taking him on a 'smell tour of London' and she wanted a book for them to smell, so I fetched them a book, they smelled it, and I've been having an existential crisis about where my life is at ever since
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the most important thing a real, brick-and-mortar bookstore can offer you is the chance to find something you didn't know you were looking for
algorithms choose stuff for you based on who you have been up until now. they struggle to predict who you might be tomorrow
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VICTORIAN SCIENTIST: we would like you to walk in lines and spin silk
SPIDER: counterproposal, we choose violence
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someone just rang in because they wanted to buy a sword and instead of telling them 'I am sorry we do not supply swords we are a bookstore' richard just tells him 'oh i know a guy' and walks off
every day i realize I have no idea what goes on in this place
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YOU: why is the printer not working again
ME: (with a rudimentary understanding of windows 11) the machine spirit is unresponsive, tray 2 is engaged in heretical spooling, join me in chanting the canticle of troubleshooting
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sometimes you just want to read about imaginary people suffering, and that's okay because they are not real people, they are fictional
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because it's the weekend, and I clearly have too much time on my hands
I present Battle of the Brontës, the rpg about dismal weather and incredibly talented sisters
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in England the traditional way to address someone breaking into government buildings is to cut them into bits and then every year on the anniversary of the attempt you burn little scarecrow caricatures of them as you set off ironic explosives
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look I hate to break it to you but when a notable author passes away and you casually stroll in to buy up all the first editions it is not subtle, you can be honest, we all know whats going on, the rare book trade is a macabre bazaar of sin and I do not have the moral high ground
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ART COLLECTORS: my vault is hermetically sealed
COMIC COLLECTORS: everything is ordered by issue and in plastic
TOY COLLECTORS: I've never even opened this box
BOOK COLLECTORS: (erupts from a pile of books) I have no idea what I was looking for when I started
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It's worth noting that if the world at large wasn't so snobbish about fantasy, we might be teaching books as accessible and insightful as Night Watch to kids in school and in the process avoid raising quite so many little fascists.
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you know it's really strange but on reflection I think there is really only one figure in the whole of human history who you can poke fun at on the internet in the full confidence that not a single person will object, and that is lord byron
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'No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that.'
- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
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become ungovernable
like spiders asked to work together
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due to the increasing risk of coronavirus, we are re-implementing our tried and tested plague protocols last used in 1918
1⃣ you wait across the road from the bookstore
2⃣ you drop coin into a designated bucket
3⃣ we hurl a random book at you across the street
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personally I wish to be buried with my husband in the same grave with our bones arranged in a heart formation and the headstone to read "they knew each other casually"
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people often ask us what working in a bookstore is like and lately words fail me so I made you a fun dice game to show you exactly how it feels - I present Bookstore, a one page micro rpg for lonely people
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why spend your money on space travel when you could buy a gothic castle, fill it to the rafters with obscure texts, live out the rest of your life in comfortable seclusion and then leave your entire fortune to the person who can solve the riddle hidden in your collection
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if I text you 🏰🐗📚 I'm trapped in the castle of a terrible beast but don't bother rescuing me because he has an extremely well stocked medieval library and I could actually learn to live with the tusks
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"doctor barbie"
"pastry chef barbie"
where is antiquarian barbie
where is seeker of dark truths barbie
where is hunted occultist barbie
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it's the ides of march
betray someone you love today 💙
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INSPECTOR: and do you train your staff in fire safety regularly
MANAGER: it's more of a Darwinian approach if we're honest, good for morale
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“You took an oath to uphold the law and defend the citizens without fear or favor," said Vimes. "And to protect the innocent. Maybe they thought those were the important things...you're an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
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If I'd known when I walked into this rare bookshop 8 years ago (then still young and full of hope) that I'd one day be bullied into writing a book about it I would have fled screaming
that's right — it's PUBLICATION DAY for Once Upon A Tome: the Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller
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every year I hold a little anniversary for the time when I called another bookseller 'chaotic evil' and they complained to the Antiquarian Bookseller Association
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when I was 11 I was bullied by an angry jazz instructor into picking up a trombone and many years later I got this job because the manager thought it was hysterical that I would include that on my CV, so the lesson here is that there is no lesson and the world is chaos
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I am being haunted by a bookstore owning angel who sends me personalized Christmas gifts, wax sealed letters and magic sixpence (marked as "perfectly innocent printed materials")
mr.
@neilhimself
sir can you collect aziraphale please he is out of control with good tidings
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DOCTORS: yes i am afraid you may all have to self-quarantine for up to two whole weeks alone with little human contact
ME (inside my book fort): this is the moment I've been preparing for all my life
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small reminder that we are still running a reduced staff because we prefer them alive, and we really appreciate it when people are patient about non-urgent things, such as the entire concept of rare books, everything we do and all the services we provide
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I occasionally hear people say that a household only has room for a single bibliophile, and I always say that seems like a failure of imagination because humans actually don't take up much space if you fold them right
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starting an onlyfans account where I take a book and slowly remove its dust jacket to soft jazz music
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people are fleeing twitter and I am just-
do you know how long it took to get this bookstore popular on one social media platform
I am not doing it again on a different one
I refuse
archaeologists will find my bones buried under this hill
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the other day I hear a *big* sigh of relief way across the bookstore so I look up from my corner and chris is beaming, holding up a book and a magnifying glass, saying "it's okay, everyone, it's not human skin!" and that was our win for that day
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someone sent in a 16th century copy of Dante's Inferno for us to look at and BEHOLD HOW TINY IT IS, damnation has never been so cute and portable
It gets plus +15 book points for the term "Spirito Bizzaro" which is what I aspire to be when I die
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asking for privacy in this difficult time
nothing has happened, it's just monday and I don't feel the weekend was long enough
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I hope he doesn't find out about what we did to the fire escape
I think it's behind some books somewhere
it's more of a Fire Obstacle Course
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just a personal opinion here but I would pay good money to see ursula le guin rip out ayn rand's spine as a finishing move
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lol he's playing a video about fire extinguishers
sir, this place is a tinderbox
if it gets near an open flame, it's basically game over and I think we can all just accept that
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ok, I have cleaned it up a bit for posterity
I would like everyone to forward this game to all their friends and associates who say things like 'i would love to own a little bookstore' because it is imperative you save them from themselves
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if I had a penny for every time this week someone came in and made rather unsubtle inquiries about how to acquire a book bound in human leather I would have two pennies. which is not a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
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I'm not sure he appreciates our Hunger Games school of healthy and safety
he's not even ticking boxes anymore
he's just mumbling "training" and looking distraught
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if you send us a really rude email, then I have to tell you that it will absolutely get forwarded around the shop to muttered exclamations of "the nerve of it" or "good grief"
and also no to the thing you asked for 💙
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remember it's always ethical to marry a duke for their book collection and then arrange for them to slip on the balcony of the gothic tower
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one of the only perks of lockdown is the increased opportunity for ad hoc signage
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or a Fire Escape Room
I shall encourage him to look at it more as a team building exercise
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if someone is bothering you, you can always come into the bookstore and we will act like we know you, though you may have to pretend you have an intense, undying love of byzantine architecture (or whatever is currently in stock)
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amazing book of deranged Victorian spider experiments and antics 10/10
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it was even delivered by someone who looked suspiciously like Crowley in disguise
is this it
has my life peaked
it can only be downhill from here
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I always act like I'm so much better than fantasy protagonists but lets be honest I would 100% touch the book of forbidden secrets, even if it did mean accidentally starting the war of the unclean and maybe also releasing the queen of spiders from her endless slumber
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hi welcome to gondor
pick any house, we have many empty due to the burning mountain of evil 3 miles that way
no there is no king, they all died a few thousand years ago and replacing them seemed a bother so we gave the throne to the janitor
yes that is our tree, it is dead
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Lockdown has also made us realise we must diversify. Top business idea : bibliophile hook up app called Bindr. Yes?
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UPDATE: inspector has left, looking rather pale and having been introduced to book collecting which seemed to cheer him up a bit
he did ask us to do a few things like remove the books from in front of the fire extinguisher but that was obviously his delirium talking
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NEW PINNED TWEET
we are Sotherans & we sell old/rare books
we are so old that no-one remembers we exist, thanks to centuries of polite marketing
we have a clock that doesn't work, a stuffed owl and at least one relatively amenable ghost
find us at
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sorry it took me so long to reply to your email, I died 200 years ago and my ghost can only manifest enough telekinetic power to press keys once a week
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If you'll excuse me I need to go and find a platonic friend to write a 160 page biography about after their sudden death describing their face in intimate detail whilst clutching a sculpture they chiselled of me from raw stone because this is normal behaviour for acquaintances
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INSPECTOR: and when you say "secret cellar" what exactly do you mean
MANAGER: well it's more of a cave with stairs I suppose
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I don't personally play a lot of attention to sport and so for weeks I have been convinced I was living in some kind of english horror movie as people kept telling me it was 'coming home' but wouldn't tell me what It was, what It wanted, or what I could do to prevent It arriving
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it's that time of year again so here is your annual reminder that if you stumble across a creepy book abandoned on a pedestal in a dusty chamber it is almost certainly a poor idea to open it
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I would give him a hug but I'm not sure I've been trained in the possible risk management for that
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today I scared away a bunch of five kids (who were banging on the glass like hooligans) with a single malevolent glare
I have finally reached peak bookseller
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INSPECTOR: "so how do you lift boxes"
US: "oh, well we just...sort of...yank like th-"
INSPECTOR: "NO NO DEFINITELY NOT STEP AWAY FROM THE BOX"
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“Coppers were always outnumbered, so being a copper only worked when people let it work. If they refocused and realized you were just another standard idiot with a pennyworth of metal for a badge, you could end up as a smear on the pavement.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
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it's a bit like working with wild bears
you're locked in a deadly embrace with a profession that will inevitably one day come to an abrupt and probably rather painful halt
except bears don't usually leap off shelves towards you at 1pm on a friday afternoon
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he's a 3 and he hid his homicidally insane wife in the attic and tricked you into a fake wedding ceremony and also he's really rude to you all the time BUT he's rich and you are also a 3
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one time I was asked to arrange a book display in the window by any theme I wanted so I chose RAINBOW and I was never allowed to touch it again because it turns out they meant something like "epicureanism" or "long form poetry"
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I have never witnessed such talented trolling in all my life, EVEN THE SEAL IS BEAUTIFUL, they had business cards made up
afsghdjd
@Mr_AZ_Fell
did you do this
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today's events include finding someone has added a "poisonous" book into stock and now I guess we have to do a whole staff meeting about why we cannot sell poisoned books to customers, and how a footnote is not considered to be taking sufficient precautions
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I just found this business card inside an old book and I'm crying
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ME: ok everyone I need all the gay books we have so I can do a thread
STAFF: we sold it
ME: what
STAFF: (weeps) the internet is so gay, we sold it all and we need to buy more we SOLD it oliver you didn't tell us the internet was gay why didn't you tell us it was gay
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This is my last post as temporary captain of the Sotheran Twittership. I hope my mix of buffoonery and irascibility was ok. I certainly enjoyed myself and learnt stuff about fan fiction, spiritualist hymnwriters and cats. But hark - an owl opening a tin of tuna. Oliver is nigh!
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remember when ABEbooks wanted to pull out of some countries so the antiquarian bookselling collectives removed all their books from Amazons marketplaces and Amazon eventually caved because they underestimated the willingness of the entire rare book trade to perish on principle
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we are rapidly entering that period before christmas where people start throwing themselves on our mercy to find appropriate gifts for their book loving family members ("anything you have", they say) which is a great chance for us to dispense of unsettling and ominous items
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It's an open secret that all archaeologists, librarians, curators, book dealers and archivists are secret agents. When we say "out of the office", we mean "screaming GIVE ME THE OTHER HALF OF THE AMULET to a rival whilst battling with them on the edge of a waterfall"
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It's always nice when someone has clearly used a book to cut out letters for a ransom note, gives it real character
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