Grolier Poetry Bookshop - History of The Shop

History of The Shop

The Grolier Poetry Book Shop was founded in September 1927 by Adrian Gambet and Gordon Cairnie; the subsequent owner, Louisa Solano, a 1966 graduate of Boston University, took over operation of the store in 1974 after Cairnie's death. The original owners were independently wealthy and were able to run the business at a loss, giving away books to favoured customers without charge, falling behind with bills and turning a blind eye to theft. Much of the activity at Grolier's under Cairnie's management was of the social kind: visitors lounged on a red couch while sharing drinks with the owners.

Solano was unable to support the store with her own money and turned it into a self-sustaining business. She found innovative ways to promote poetry in the Cambridge community; for many years the Grolier has sponsored an annual, national poetry contest as well as a reading series in nearby Adams House, a dormitory at Harvard. Solano's knowledge of poetry was well known in the Cambridge and Harvard community, and in the era before internet bookselling, she was considered a valuable source for people seeking rare and unusual poetry titles. Under Solano's management, for example, the store was the first to stock Language Magazine, the periodical that launched the avant-garde L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement.

Despite the Grolier's fame in poetry circles — a 75th anniversary celebration by the Poetry Society of America drew a crowd of over 800 people, and Grolier's is listed as a "poetry landmark" by the Academy of American Poets — Solano announced in 2004 that, having lost money for the previous two years, the Grolier would be sold. The causes of the shop's troubles are numerous: a rise in Internet bookselling that made it easier to find rare titles online, increasing store theft, rising rent from the Grolier's landowner (Harvard University), a growth in university-centered, as opposed to community-centered, creative writing opportunities, and the rise of chain stores in the Harvard Square area that have reduced the area's attractiveness to the Grolier's target market.

In March 2006, the store was sold to Nigerian poet Ifeanyi Menkiti, a professor at Wellesley College. In September 2012, the Grolier Poetry Book Shop will celebrate its 85th anniversary, a celebration that will continue until September 2013