Allan Harrison and the Classic Bookshop Bookmark

Having recently written about the origins of the Classic Bookshops in Montreal, I mentioned that a series of their bookmarks had the name of Allan Harrison printed along the left edge near the top in small print. I assumed it was the artist responsible for the design and left it at that. Recently, however, I was looking at Miriam Waddington's third book of poetry, The Season's Lovers (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958), and slipping off the dustwrapper I found the design replicated on the binding. It was only then that I noticed the name of Allan Harrison printed in the same manner as the Classic Bookmarks, along the left edge near the top. Somehow I didn't notice it on the dustwrapper. This led me to a casual search for information concerning Allan Harrison and concluded he was the Montreal artist whose interview in 1973 can be found here. (Interestingly enough, in the interview he mentions Classic Bookshop as a store where one could find a certain art book of a certain artist.) It seems my impression that the artist/designer of the Classic Bookshop bookmark--photos below--was a youthful 1960s hippie has to be re-evaluated. Allan Harrison (1911-1988) was a lesser known Montreal artist and designer who also did work for publishing houses such as Ryerson and Maynard Gertler's Harvest House among others.

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: T. Westcott Books

T. Westcott Books: Having lived near this bookshop during the 1990s, I would drop by almost daily for a browse. Often I would warm up on the way back from evening university courses and have a chat with Terry's stalwart evening stand-in, the ever affable Andrew. Terry had two cats, Eliot and Emma who brought additional character to the store, Eliot often spread out on a top shelf in dream state, and Emma forever hiding. The shop was always well-stocked, and one sensed that there were always more books than shelf space. I bought a fair number of books there. Terry's prices were good and the stock was constantly changing. No doubt still is.

He opened a second location for awhile at 1917 St. Catherine Street West, a shop right beside the well-known Montreal institution, Argo Bookshop where he had worked for many years. It was a small space, neater for it, and had some very nice books. He also had another cat I remember, a rare breed he saved from an Upper Westmount home where he was buying books. I believe he called it Jaguar for its unusual colouring.

Terry Westcott has had the great privilege of working for two well-respected bookmen in Montreal, Reg Russell of Russell Books, and Mr. George of Argo. He has never issued much in the way of bookmarks, but he certainly has the books. T. Westcott Books is another great stalwart bookseller in Montreal who has managed to stay the course.

A write up can be found here.

Addendum: My wife reminded me that during the ice storm of 1998 in which we were personally in shivering darkness for 3 days--days I have tried to forget--Terry's nearby bookshop and a wonderful noodle resto next to him were fortunate to have electric power. A pocket of light on an otherwise cold and dark street. Big bowls of hot and sour soup went down very well with a long browse in a warm bookshop.

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: S. W. Welch Bookseller

Unlike The Word Bookstore who have had the very good fortune of never having to move their location, S. W. Welch Bookseller have experienced a few moves over the years. Their first shop at 5285 Decarie Boulevard at the corner of Isabella, looked out to the Head Office of Zellers across the Decarie Expressway. It was a shop that was a series of small rooms having originally been an apartment. On entering the shop, it had the feel of Sam Spade's office in a way. The book selection was very good and the bookseller a larger than life character. The bookmark to the left is one from that period and I have always liked the design. A certain hard-boiled noir feel to the image.

They then moved to 5673 Sherbrooke Street West in N. D. G., a large, deep retail location with a good display window. They issued a couple of bookmark designs during the years spent there, the television sets being one of them. I sort of like it too. It has a postmodern ironic retro look.

A third move brought them to 3878 St. Laurent Boulevard and it must have been a hell of a move for they had a lot of books. The bookmark design for this third location shown here looks like the work of the graphic novelist/cartoonist Marc Bell and reflects the newer layer of trendy hip graffiti culture which moved into the area.

They made a fourth move in 2007 to 225 St.-Viateur West, just a stroll away from St.-Viateur Bagel. Nice. Having not been in Montreal since 2002, I will have to drop by for a browse and a bagel and see if they have a new bookmark. Stephen Welch is one of the stalwart booksellers of Montreal and he may very well share the record of bookshop moves with the wonderful Joe Block of Bibliomania Bookshoppe, and the great Reg Russell of Russell Books each having moved shop four times as far as I know. Pretty good company.

addendum: thanks to the comment of SWW the artist of this bookmark is Billy Mavreas

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: The Word Bookstore

Three survivors of the post-analog world in the Montreal secondhand bookselling trade share the letter W: The Word Bookstore, S. W. Welch Bookseller, and T. Wescott Books. One could almost surmise that the letter is lucky. If only it were that simple. They just happen to be three booksellers in for the long-haul, who, with a lot of hard work, determination, persistence and knowledge, have managed to stay the course. They each have unique stories of development, and one hopes they will write about them one day.

The Word has resided in the same little shop now for over 35 years and, but for a few upgrades, the shop has changed very little. It remains my favourite bookshop for browsing even though I have not been back to Montreal since 2002. I am long overdue for a browse. Their bookmark design remained consistent--like their quality and selection of books--through the years, the variation being the pleasant variety of coloured cardstock.

Being close to McGill University and having good relationships with local small press publishers are some of the reasons for its longevity, and they often held--and probably still do--book launches and poetry readings in the shop. The announcements to the left are from the early 1980s. They did come out with a new larger bookmark around their 25th anniversary in March 2000 as seen below.

Montreal English Language Bookshop Bookmarks: a Small Selection

It is almost as if bookmarks are little memory devices for bookshops that have long since closed their doors. Holding one, the subtleties of paper texture, weight, colour and design can bring about assorted memories of the shops, their owners, employees, and customers. It seems most of the bookshops represented in this small selection have ceased operation.

The Double Hook (1974-2005) briefly took hold on St. Catherine Street before swinging round to the Greene Avenue location where they established themselves as the source for Canadian authors. Named after the Sheila Watson novel, the bookhop's logo or device still hangs over the entrance to the old shop (now occupied by the Babar bookshop, Babar en ville), an architectural detail that has become a possibly unnoticed memento mori. The Double Hook provided not only hard-to-find Canadian books for customers, but an abundance of memories of pleasant book browsing and interesting author signings.

Elliot-Duncan Ltd. Booksellers, 1381 St. Catherine Street West. Librairie Ficciones Literary Bookstore, 111 Duluth West. (Excellent selection of world literature in translation.) Avenue Bookshop, 1368 Greene (location now an art gallery beside the newer and still thriving Nicholas Hoare Bookshop.) Footnotes Fine Used Books, 1454 Mackay St.(A very small shop near Concordia University that had a decent selection of literature and academic titles.) Librairie Déjà-lu, 5624 Monkland Avenue. Livres Métamorphoses Books, 3418a Avenue du Parc. Circum, 1946 St. Catherine Street West. Lexis, 2055 Peel Street. (New books with a couple of retail stores while in existence.) Vortex, 1855 Ste. Catherine Street West. (Fine selection of secondhand books in what was probably the cleanest and most orderly shop in town, not a book out of line.)

Huis Clos/No Exit, 3636 St. Laurent. (Previously discussed here.) Magnus Bookshop, 4932-B Sherbrooke Street West. (A below street level shop in Westmount that dealt in remaindered books and publishers' overstock. It was a good place to come across some interesting titles. The owner was helpful and provided special orders and was always busy with his photocopy service which helped keep the business viable.) Tally-Ho Book Store, 764 St. Pierre. Nebula, 1452 St. Mathieu. (Discussed briefly here.) Everyman's Bookshop, 1475 St. Catherine Street West (with the classic v-shaped die-cut design.) Prospero, 1455 Peel. (Retail chain selling new books with a number of outlets in Ottawa.) Librairie Russell Books, 275 St. Antoine West. (The wonderful large bookshop with used books and publishers' overstock; the owner, a well-loved and respected bookman who helped mentor many young booksellers.)

Bibliophile, 5519 Queen Mary Road. Livres Anthologies Boooks Inc., 1420 Stanley. Terre des Livres, 1612 Sherbrooke Street West. Danger!, 3968 St.-Laurent. (Owned by the same young man who opened and operated Nebula, Claude Lalumière. A knowledgeable collection of comics, graphic novels, science fiction and fantasy.) Le Mélange Magic, 1928 St. Catherine West. (Wide variety of books, mainly non-fiction, dealing with esoteric subjects, in addition to Tarot cards, incense, candles, and much else. Store cats were always a draw.) Librairie Beaconsfield Bookstore, 50 Boul. St.-Charles. (A serviceable West Island bookshop selling new books.) Librairie de théatre Stage Theatre Bookshop, 3575 Avenue du Parc.

It seems out of this small selection of bookmarkers, only Bibliophile and Mélange Magic are still in operation.

Montreal Book Shops No. 3: Nebula (and William Gibson and Sting)

My memory seems a bit nebulous at times, but I definitely remember lining up on St. Mathieu Street in Montreal in front of the specialty bookshop, Nebula to buy William Gibson's new book, Virtual Light (released September 1993) and to have the pleasure of having it signed by him. Befitting the name of the bookshop, it was a grey overcast, cool--possibly cold--misty day of showers. At the time, I was busy working two jobs and attending university courses most nights, so I can't quite remember the exact date, but I think it was sometime in October of 1993.

The bookshop was in one of the older attractive stone row houses on St. Mathieu, west side, just down from de Maisonneuve Boulevard, huddled in the shadow of a high rise block of no memorable feature. I seem to recall that these old houses, though commercialized, still retained a fair amount of their gingerbread architectural detail in 1993. Using Google Street View today, the section of the street appears slightly different, the buildings have been modernized and the architectural details removed for the most part. There is an interesting restaurant, Pho Nguyen, in the address of the of old bookstore. Also interesting, the police station across the street, a building whose walls must have absorbed much stress, distress and anxiety, is now a commercial building with a company called BattleNet.24, an Internet café. An all night cyber café in an old police station. There must be some form of Gibsonian irony there.

The Book Signing:

Joining the line on the sidewalk outside in the rain, bumping umbrellas and trying not to poke some passing pedestrian's eye out--pedestrians bereft of comprehension of what could possibly draw people to line up in the rain--I found myself moving step by step as the line made its way slowly into the warmth of the upstairs shop. The bookstore was quaint, but cramped for space. William Gibson was seated at a table of modest dimension. He had a pen in his left hand. It looked promising. Thank god no beverages were involved. The line shifted forward like an assembly line for quality control. Murmur of small talk wafted backwards, voiced pleasantries with charming undertones. Perhaps a trill of light nervous laughter. The pressure to come up with something witty or urbane mounted within me. All of a sudden it felt quite warm. With the wet furled umbrella hanging over my left forearm, I advanced like some minion approaching his lordship with the latest telegram on a small silver tray, or a waiter with the soup of the day. I humbly mumbled a greeting and handed him the book. I recall he had a most discerning eye as we exchanged eye contact. I doubt mine was as discerning. He signed the half-title with panache, and finished by placing an audible period, or dot, in the middle of the "O" of his last name, closed the book and handed it to me. I duly thanked him and moved on allowing those behind their opportunity. I believe he said thanks for waiting in the rain, but whether it was to me or a friend who accompanied me, I can't recall.

I think it was one of the few specific book signings I had attended up to that date. I generally hesitate when it comes to asking authors for a signature. I remember a Martin Amis reading at the Centaur Theatre in old Montreal a few years later but I hesitated at approaching him in the lobby after his droll one-man performance. It takes a certain moxy to approach authors cold. I believe I would feel more at ease with a serendipitous meeting. Like spilling a drink on their suede shoes or something.

Looking at William Gibson's signature now, I realise I had forgotten that he had also underlined the "O" with three lines, creating an ideograph or logogram of some interest. A casual search of the Internet for his signature reveals examples of variation. Some are just plain W.M.Gibson. Some have a little circle within the "O" of his last name. I did come across a youtube video of him signing a book and I could see him underline the defining letter three times. There may be other variations. For the number of books he must have signed over the span of his writing career, variations must breath life into his well worn letters, and allow for a wider expression of his personality and character.

The bookshop Nebula, later moved to 1832 St. Catherine Street, the south side, (now an interesting Korean Restaurant called Towa) a larger space, but of infinitely less charm and interest, and here they continued to offer an excellent choice of science fiction, fantasy, crime, graphic novels, and magazines. Hard times must have hit them, for I then remember that it moved into the back of Mélange Magic bookstore for awhile. Then in the summer of 2000 it closed shop. Their letter of goodbye can be found here.

It is not quite a defunct bookshop as it continues in, dare I say with no disrespect, a nebulous form on-line.

Thinking about the year 1993, it certainly helps to jog the memory with music. The stream of popular hits that played in the shops and on the radio were probably dominated by Duran Duran, The Cranberries, Pet Shop Boys, U2 and perhaps overwhelmingly by certain songs by Sting off his Ten Summoner's Tales, especially Fields of Gold. For me, Sting's Fields of Gold dominates the year. The song and William Gibson's Virtual Light are connected in a an unusual juxtaposition, the pastoral romantic and a world of subtopian redeemers, their very substance seemingly at opposite poles, but spun together in a dance of time and place.

Montreal Bookshops No. 2: Defunct Part 1: Huis Clos / No Exit

Defunct is an odd word. Not a word that one would hear bandied about in the press these days. A bit old-fashioned, a bit dusty, unlikely to come up in everyday conversation. A word edging its way towards a glossary of archaic words perhaps. It is a strong, ham-fisted type of word with that stiff ended "ct". Looking it up in the OED, I have to say I like Coleridge's usage: "This ghost of a defunct absurdity." This figurative use is quite appealing and breathes life into the word--no irony intended--and is perhaps the future for such words for it seems to retain a usefulness for poetry and the pulpit. Perhaps a rock band could incorporate the word into their name, The Defunct Wallabees, or the Defunctives. In a song, it could be rhymed with adjunct, something a defunct Noel Coward could pull off. Then again, it would work well in a rap song.

As an owner of a defunct bookshop myself--well, at least in the brick and mortar type, for I still sell on-line, check out the sidebar for the links--I feel a certain affiliation with bookshops that have called it a day. Some lasted many, many years, while others had a brief existence. It seems appropriate that the first defunct bookshop I will discuss was called Huis Clos / No Exit.

Huis Clos / No Exit

This secondhand bookshop I remember being at 3636 St. Laurent, the west side, just up from Prince Arthur. It was in operation in the mid-1980s (83-86?). A fairly open space that had previously been Salamander Shoe Shop for many years. If I remember correctly, there was a set of stairs to bring you up to an open area literature section overlooking the shop below and I still have a sharp visual memory of passing on half a dozen hardcover copies of the collected works of Arthur Hugh Clough in what I think was a modern Oxford edition. I hesitated at the price, and when I went back to buy a copy, the shop had closed. One of many regrets of a book collector with limited means and wavering resolve.

Near by was the Androgyny Alternatives Bookstore at 3642 St. Laurent, which actually moved into the Huis Clos / No Exit address once they closed down. The bookmark pictured above, complete with stylised drama masks and barbed wire, lists the shop at 4318 St. Laurent, but I have no memory of ever visiting that location, and strangely enough, I cannot locate a listing for the shop at that address in the street directories.

Of course the name of the shop comes from the play by Jean Paul Sartre. No doubt someone uttered the phrase, "L'enfer, c'est les autres" but I never heard the words spoken, although I may have thought them if scooped by another buyer. I do recall, however, that one of the owner's siblings used to be in the shop from time to time, and they were heavily into the Boy George Culture Club look of the day. (As I type these words, I can hear that Karma Chameleon song.) There was a quirky vibe to the shop. I guess it was the mix of Culture Club fashion, existentialist homage, the proximity to the alternative bookstore and being on a street which was trending nicely upwards. The book selection was quite good as well.

note: As to the Coleridge quote, it comes from his 1809 essay On the Errors of Party Spirit: or Extremes Meet in his periodical The Friend. The subscribers of the day were apparently irked by the obscurity of some of these essays, though as Richard Holmes writes in his biography Coleridge: Darker Reflections, "Within its Amazonian jungle of tangled, unparagraphed, discursive prose, lay limpid pools of story-telling, criticism, memoir-writing and philosophic reflection." And perhaps a defunct word or two.

Montreal Bookshops No. 1: Classic Book Shop

Having recently posted about Penguin Books, I began thinking of my own interest in this publisher's offerings and I began to recall my visits in the 1970s and early 1980s to a Montreal retail bookshop on St. Catherine Street West called Classic Book Shop, or Classics as it was referred to by many people including myself. Little did I know, as I browsed the shelves for, among others, the small green Penguin Modern Classics, and the small black Penguin Classics, that this store had such a long history. I still have vivid memories of moving about in that shop and certain faces of the employees are discernible. I can still see the various subject sections and the modern staircase in my mind, and the shelves with the majority of the books with their front covers facing the customer, an innovation developed by the store and followed by others.

Of course there are many who knew the history of the bookshop while it was still in operation, and knew of the owner Louis Melzack (1914-2002) and no doubt many people have pleasant memories of browsing the shop during the earlier decades, but I was just a young customer who experienced what I now see was but the tail-end of the book shop's fairly long existence. Only now, looking back , and using Street directories (complete with occasional mispellings of information) and other reference sources, can I appreciate the background and developement of this bookshop.

The roots of the book shop can be traced back to The Universal Book Store which first opened its doors in 1928 at 1055 Bleury with the proprietor listed as one Jack Melzac, the father of Louis Melzack. Bleury was of course a completely different street from today, with many small shops and businesses including quite a few book shops; certain buildings that survive such as the Southam Building (now gentrified into condos) reflect a long forgotten era. In 1930, the book shop moved to 1122 Bleury (between Dowd and Carmichael streets) and was renamed Classic Book Shop, proprietor J. Melzack. The book shop remained at this address until 1938 when it was relocated to 1380 St. Catherine Street West, the south side between Mountain and Crescent.

So, Louis Melzack, born in 1914, the son of the owner, presumably started helping out in his father's book and magazine shop in 1928 when he was 14 years old. By 1938, Louis Melzack was in his early twenties and listed in the directories as "emp" or employee of Classic Book Shop. By looking at the home addresses of the family, I can surmise (conjecture on my part of course) that it was Louis who was interested in moving westwards. His father's residential addresses were close to the original bookshop location, such streets as de Bullion, Pine Avenue, Waverley, Querbes, Bernard and St. Joseph Boulevard, while the younger Louis first moved to 1811 Dorchester West, and then much further west to Ponsard Avenue. This westward movement was quite typical as the areas of Cote-des-Neiges and Notre Dame-de-Grace were freshly developing residential districts from the 1920s to the 1940s and I think of my own grandfather who first lived in the Plateau Mount Royal area back in the 1920s before moving to Notre Dame-de-Grace in the mid-1930s.

Moving the shop in 1938 to St. Catherine Street West was a bold commercial step. There were already many well-established book businesses in the area:

Brown Foster Ltd. at 1240 St. Catherine Street West.
Burton's Ltd. at 1004 St. Catherine Street West.
Lyon's Book Shop at 1480 St. Catherine Street West.
Montreal Book Room at 1458 McGill College Avenue.
Poole Book Store at 2055 McGill College Avenue.
Toronto Book Store at 1344 St. Catherine Street West.
VanGuard Book Company at 1170 St. Catherine Street West.

In addition to these establishments, there were the book departments of the various Department Stores.

In the year 1941, the directory lists the proprietors of Classic Book Shop as "J. & L. Melsack", the first listing for Louis as a partner in the business. In the year 1956, Louis Melzack, though still listed as partner in the original shop, is also listed as running Classic's Little Books Inc. at 1373 St. Catherine Street West (he opened it in 1955 and it was the first paperback shop in the country) and it is from this point that the expansion of this business develops, with stores on Rockland Road and one at the Dorval airport, and eventually to shopping malls such as Alexis Nihon Plaza, Place Ville Marie and others until approximately 60 stores nationwide by the year 1980.

In January of 1981 Louis Melzack sold the business to his son and essentially retired. But he was back at it again and opened an antiquarian book business in Toronto in 1981 revealing his life long interest in collecting books and manuscripts.

In 1985 the Classic Bookstore chain, now 110 stores, was sold to the Canadian branch of the British book chain W. H. Smith. This then was later purchased by Chapters Bookstores, and as we know, Chapters was then taken over by Indigo.

In browsing these new mega stores today, I can appreciate the influence and importance of the innovation that Louis Melzack and his family brought to the business of book selling in Canada. There is a hidden legacy there.

The bookmarkers pictured here are samples from the 1960s to early 1980s. The name Allan Harrison is printed sideways on the bookmarks, left to right, 2nd, 3rd & 4th in the top row, and I gather he was responsible for the design. The lettering captures the 60s early 70s "groovy" zeitgeist, and triggers vague memories of similar lettering for movies, music and advertising of the period.