ABSTRACT

To the regret of bibliophiles and poetry lovers on both sides of the Atlantic, on 22 June 1935, Alida Monro announced the closing of the Poetry Bookshop:

I need hardly say with what deep regret I have come to this decision and I want to thank you most warmly for the manner in which you have supported us, and to tell you what great joy my husband and I had in conducting it. We never felt that any effort was too great if by it we were able to stimulate interest in poetry. It is indeed some consolation to look back and to realize that when Harold Monro opened the Poetry Bookshop in Devonshire Street, Theobald’s Road, in January 1913 modern poetry was hardly known. Now, more than twenty one years later there is hardly a bookseller who is not forced to keep more poetry on his shelves than he would have thought possible all those years ago. Perhaps the Bookshop has not lived in vain! 1