[Illustration: _Charles Hutt's House in Clement's Inn Passage._]
One of the last bookselling haunts to be pulled down was the quaint old shop occupied by the late Charles Hutt (who, by the way, was born in the vestry of the Clare Market chapel-of-ease) where many famous book-hunters had picked up bargains. Charles Hutt, had he lived, would have become one of the leading booksellers of the day. He was for some years at Hodgson's, and possessed a remarkable taste for, and knowledge of, books. He left Hodgson's and started on his own account in the old ramshackle house already referred to. This shop presented so unfavourable an exterior that even the Income-tax Fiend never 'called in,' although at one time there were several thousands of pounds' worth of books in it. Hutt did a very extensive trade, not only in this country, but in America. He had an especial aptitude at completing sets of particular authors--Landor, Leigh Hunt, Byron, Shelley--and contributed much to the prevailing taste for modern first editions. A younger brother, Mr. F. H. Hutt, has been for some years established at 10, Clement's Inn Passage, within a few yards of the old shop. The associations of the past half-century of this neighbourhood include two other well-known firms of booksellers. Theophilus Noble, who had removed from 114, Chancery Lane, was at 79, Fleet Street for some years until his death in 1851, and a member of the same family is still a second-hand bookseller opposite St. Mary-le-Strand Church. Reeves and Turner removed from Noble's old house in Chancery Lane, to the house on the west side of Temple Bar and adjoining it on the north, erected on the site of the famous old bulk-shop, the last of its race, where at one time Crockford, 'Shell-fishmonger and gambler,' lived. When Temple Bar was removed, this shop came down, and Reeves and Turner (who for the second time had to bow to the necessities of 'improvements') opened their well-known place on the south side of the Strand, facing St. Clement's Church. Their spacious shop here for about a quarter of a century was a famous book-haunt, and one of the very few successful ones which have existed in a crowded thoroughfare. It always contained an immense variety of good and useful books, priced at exceedingly moderate amounts, and the poorer book-lover could always venture, generally successfully, on suggesting a small reduction in the prices marked without being trampled in the dust as a thief and a robber. A year or two ago, when the lease of the shop expired, Messrs. Reeves and Turner bibliopolically ceased to exist--there not being a Reeves or a Turner in the Chancery Lane firm of booksellers of that name--but Mr. David Reeves, a son of Mr. William Reeves, started in Wellington Street, Strand, the latter, the _doyen_ of London booksellers, occupying a portion of the house as a publisher and a dealer in remainders.
