Gotham Book Mart - History

History

The store was opened January 1, 1920 by Frances (Fanny) Steloff. Steloff's husband, David Moss, suggested both the store's name and its "Wise Men..." motto, which was inspired by Washington Irving. Steloff nurtured the store as a literary sanctuary for the avant-garde, distributing copies of the banned Lady Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and safeguarded Anais Nin's books when she fled Paris. Under Steloff's oversight, the store became a meeting place for the literati and 20th century cultural icons, essentially serving as a literary salon.

In February 1947, the James Joyce Society was founded at the Gotham with its first president, John Slocum (a Joyce bibliographer) and Steloff was its first treasurer. The first member was T.S. Eliot.

The success of the store was partly due to Steloff's demanding nature and attention to quality, as well as business acumen. Steloff lived in an apartment above the store and later sold it in 1967 to book lover Andreas Brown. Upon selling the store to Brown, Steloff told him that he was not the owner, but the caretaker or custodian. Steloff continued working at the store as a consultant after selling it.

Arthur Miller said that the store was an invaluable source of books "...for research of all kinds, and perhaps above all for literature that is more than a few months old. It's impossible to imagine New York City without it." The director Woody Allen, a frequent customer of film books at the shop, once referred to it as "everyone's fantasy of what the ideal bookshop is."

After Steloff died in 1989 at age 101, Brown moved into the apartment above the shop, living there until later selling the building.

The shop was full of photos of the authors and other notable figures who frequented it, as well as signage and other visual puns that were full of literary humor and references, such as the names of Steloff's and Brown's cats: Thornton (Wilder), Christopher (Morley), Mitchell (Kennerley), and (Thomas) Pynchon. A great deal of the shop's inventory was in storage unavailable to the general public, as the proprietors obtained stock from literary estates, general overflow stock, and other books set aside for future sale after appreciating. Brown sometimes referred to book storage cellars as "the catacombs".

The Gotham was credited for promoting and building the success and career of the author Edward Gorey. Gorey and Brown became friends, so the store favored Gorey after Brown assumed ownership. The store became the commercial flagship of Gorey's works, selling his books, calendars, greeting cards, t-shirts, and other products. The store published 15 of Gorey's books and the store gallery hosted exhibitions of Gorey's illustrations, as well as public signings by the author. Brown was named as one of the coexecutors of Gorey's estate, after he died in 2000.

The history of the store is covered in the documentary film, Frances Steloff: Memoirs of a Bookseller, directed in 1987 by Deborah Dickson.