Daunt Books: a London bookshop

On a rainy afternoon this past July, I insisted my husband accompany me to one of the UK’s most famous independent bookshops in London. This is what we discovered.

There is a certain romanticism associated with the atmosphere of London that I never understood until I walked the streets myself on a rainy afternoon this past July. Amid the bustling of umbrellas and trench coats, the murmuring conversations in various British accents, and the flashing red ghosts of double-decker buses complimenting the vintage phone booths in a city washed out of any other color, I suddenly began to see how some of the best stories—some of the greatest characters in literature—began on these very walkways where people move alongside one another, a sea of faces in which individuals are nearly invisible.

The streets are narrow, and the buildings narrower still. Wrought-iron fences and gates grasp tiny plots of dirt immediately outside most of the homes in London proper. The streetlamps are old and every bus lurches as though it were about to clip them at any moment. There are only three places that greenery grows: in the public gardens walled on all sides by decades-old brick buildings, behind the iron-and-brick fences of larger yards, and between sidewalk cracks at every entrance to the Underground rail system. Everything reaches upward, as the relatively small island on which England sits offers little room to grow out.

It is undeniable that there is magic in London. Many writers have seen it and made it their business to illustrate it for the world. That magic is hidden in the middle of everything else, permeating the unsuspecting places. This is particularly the case for London bookshops, which were one of two England attractions I was most looking forward to on our trip (the other being Stourhead Gardens—read my article about that here). While we hardly scratched the surface on the lengthy list I made before we flew across the pond, I insisted my husband accompany me to this particular bookshop that has been noted as one of London’s very best: Daunt Books, #84 Marylebone High Street.

Like every other building in London proper, Daunt Books is tall and narrow on the outside. Its exterior shell bears big windows with warm lights and new reads on display that call to any bookish passersby with the promise of a captivating story, or at least, a beautiful cover. It felt like magic just standing outside the entrance, even with all the Brits staring at the silly American tourist that I was.

(Here’s my Amazon affiliate link for the perfect adventurer’s trench coat; it will be your favorite go-to jacket every day this fall, trust me!)

Some quick history for you: Daunt Books is famous within the literary community for its long-standing history as the world’s very first custom-built, independent bookshop. The place was built in 1912, and purchased by James Daunt in 1990. At that time, Daunt Books specialized in travel literature for the adventurous at heart; it has since expanded to include many more genres, including fiction, nonfiction, craft books, poetry, and even maps, journals, and stationery. Daunt Books Marylebone is the original in a chain of bookshops that has now expanded to six locations around London.

As with most places in London, the shop was tightly packed, even on a late Friday morning. The interior of the store offers three levels of books for browsing and multiple rooms stuffed with publications on every topic. Perhaps one of its most famous and stunning features are the massive glass skylights that allow daylight to stream down through the topmost balconies of classics, illuminating the central display tables for hot new releases and the main floor shelves with books sorted by geographic location. At the time of my visit, they also had the gorgeous Illustrated Editions of Harry Potter in the children’s literature section. Had I packed more than just a backpack on our trip, I would’ve taken the lot.

I must note that while it was interesting to browse books categorized by country, I was unable to find a single publication on or set in Scotland (one of my favorite subjects); it proved to be a difficult and unusual way to navigate the store until I reached the basement level and found Chinese-inspired publications such as R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, with titles of similar cultural influences lying beside it. It was then that I developed a better appreciation for the sorting system.

The husband and I spent a little time browsing the various titles I saw that are still patiently waiting on my TBR list, but in the end I determined that a special day at a special bookstore warranted a special print of a favorite. After lots of digging, I eventually found a special edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice bound in a light periwinkle blue leather cover and wrapped in a laser-cut white paper dust jacket (I’m holding it in the picture outside the bookstore’s front). 

Immediately after finding the book, we canceled the rest of our plans for the day and caught a train to Stourhead Gardens. I flipped to the famously disastrous proposal scene between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth as we stood together on the steps of the Temple of Apollo, proceeding to read the lines aloud to my husband (who somehow managed to continue humoring me and my bookish indulgences despite a long week of traveling).

Overall, my day at Daunt Books was about as English as you can get with the famous London rain pattering on the skylights overhead. Add this stop to your bookish London bucket list, and if you get a chance, swing by the London Book Barge for me, too (a fun boat-turned-bookstore anchored on the river!). What other sources of magic have you found in London?

Hannah L. Ackerman