Since 1987
A small room, well stocked.
Penelope Hart opened The Colophon in a former print works on Marchmont Street with three hundred books and a strong opinion about each of them. Nearly forty years on, the opinions remain — and so does the belief that a bookshop is a place to be talked to, not sold at.
How we choose
We don't stock by algorithm or bestseller list. Every title on the front table has been read by a bookseller who will happily tell you why it's there. If we can't stand behind a book, it doesn't get a place on the shelf — which is why we keep fewer titles than the chains, and know all of them.
The reading group
On the last Sunday of every month we close early and pull the armchairs into a circle. The group is free, the wine is cheap, and newcomers are always welcome — bring the book, or bring your excuse for not finishing it.
Penelope Hart
Founder · classics
Will find you the right Middlemarch edition and won't let you leave without it.
Idris Okafor
Fiction & events
Runs the reading group and can talk translation for hours if you let him.
Mara Lindqvist
Poetry & nature writing
Keeps the poetry wall alive and writes most of the shelf blurbs.
14 Marchmont Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1AL
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm. Closed Mondays.
hello@thecolophon.co.uk · 020 7946 0102