Osterley Bookshop September Revamp and Renewal Sale

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Ad - Visit this gem of a bookshop for all books under £8 at HALF PRICE all September

 

If it's September, it must be Osterley Bookshop's famous September revamp and renewal sale. This is a bookshop for those who don't want to read only what the big publishers are hyping and the newspapers are reviewing.

We have out-of-print, secondhand, classics and 1st editions: in fact everything you need to cosy up for the winter!

If you don't know our stock, you'll be surprised by the quirkiness of our taste. So come along and browse.

Easy parking (half hour free, and no charges on weekends). Only 10 mins by car and 15 by bus (H91) from Chiswick. Seven days a week 9.30-5-30. Situated in the old railway station opposite Osterley Park entrance, 168A Thornbury Road, Osterley, TW7 4QE. Tel: 020 8560 6206

 

Osterley Bookshop’s Version of Literary & Artistic Talent in Brentford, Chiswick & Osterley

Oliver Goldsmith, author 1728-1774. “Citizen of the World”. Check spoof of Newmarket races, with a turnip cart, a dust cart and dung cart race from London to Brentford: odds start Dust against Dung 5 to 4, but after half a mile all previous bets wrong as Turnip led the field. Eventually it was perceived Dung had the better bottom …. Well worth a read.

Shakespeare. The Merry Wives of Windsor and Falstaff’s re-entry dressed as Mother Prat, the Witch of Brentford. Oddly, Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832, see “Woodstock” and the charge brought against the Royalists (in the Civil War Battle of Brentford) of baby-eating. In fact Roger Wildrake did obtain a plump Brentford baby – but not with a view to cooking it.

Turner, J.M.W. (b. 1775). Sent to live with his uncle for a change of air aged 8, graffitied cocks and hens on walls on his way to school. Thakeray (1811-1863) see “The King of Brentford’s Testament”. Here are the last words to two verses: 1. Brentford, sick, physicians, quick, coaches, physic. 2. Master, pill, bled him, ill, lawyers, will.

Edmund Ironside (b 1016) Brentfordliterary l;ink, see Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for Canute v Edmund, drownings and booty gathered.

Read “Lyon and Jyl of Breyntford.”. Poem written prior to 1547 by Robert Copland to expose the vices of Henry VIII. Part of which runs: “At Brentford … there dwelt a widow of a homely sort, daily she could, with pastim and jestes … she kept an inn of right good lodging. To the Read Lyon at the Shamels end …” you can see where this is going, so for the sake of sensitive souls best to refer to the original, in full, in the Bodleian library, Oxford – only two copies exist. However, there are records showing the Red Lion existed in 1445 (now under a cycle lane).

Lytton, Bulwer, educated at Ealing House School. Bit of a dry author, so I’ll pass on this one.

Eliot, George – bit wide of the area – lived at Richmond (1856-9) with G.H. Lewes where she wrote “Adam Bede”. You can find the remains of her house under the Medical Office of Health building. Lord Essex recorded as head of Civil War army stationed at Turnham Green with … 24,000 soldiers!

Youngs – If Youngs Brewery had been around for 500 years I’m sure the above would have supped there … OK, we couldn’t think of a “Y”.

Butler, Samuel (1612-1680) Poem “Hudibras” – in full, very long. But Brentford Fair bit goes “In western clime there is a towne, to those that dwell therein well known” … “On days of market or of Fair; And to crack’d fiddle, and hoarse Tabor, In merriment did drudge and labour … Had rak’d together Village Rabble, Twas an old way of Recreating … call Bear – baiting; where sturdy Butchers broke your Noddle, and handled you like a Fop Doodle”. (which, incidentally, was illustrated by Hogarth (the Chiswick one).

Osterley House. Roland Penrose taught camouflaging at Osterley in WWII.

Osterely Bookshop. Loads of literary references, check Google. P.S. Our Sale is on all September.

Kent, William. Genius (1685-1748). Built Chiswick House in Palladian style. Go look!

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Poet. When 10 years old in 1802 entered Syon House Academy, Isleworth. Which was actually Brentford End. Near Brentford station and where the novelist George Manville Fenn eventually lived – in Dowden’s description: “ a gloomy brick building”. P.S. Shelly had a spectacular temper, easily provoked, and who not infrequently astonished his school fellows by blowing up the boundary palings with gunpowder, also blowing the lid off his desk in the middle of lessons (can’t say much about this viz Terrorism Act, school teacher’s pay etc etc. Good job gunpowder no longer available to school kids, otherwise they might become one of England’s best loved poets?)

Hogarth, William (1697-1764) He of “Harlot’s Progress” fame also illustrated the above poem by Samuel Butler (Hudibras). Hogarth house is worth a view at Cherry Blossom roundabout (named after the boot polish). Bretford is recognizable in the illustrations of Butler’s poem.

Oliver Twist. Dickens. Bill Sykes and Oliver Twist passed through Bretford on their way to Shepperton where the burglary was commited. Also “Our Mutual Friend” where Mrs Boffin visits Brentford to search for an infant to adopt (in quite a jolly manner).

Prince Rupert advanced to Brentford in the Civil War and if the Royalists hadn’t been checked at Brentford we wouldn’t have had John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” as he wrote the sonnet if the Parliamentarians failed to keep back the Royalists he intended to nail it to his door! Dear old Sam Pepys can’t resist slipping him in only on account of his description of “Hudibras” (see above) “It is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter Knight going to the wars, that I am ashamed of it”.

Don’t expect any literary gems from us as this has quite worn our brains out! But we’d love to see you at our September Sale – 1st through to the 30th, and sure we could manage a chat about the weather!

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August 21, 2024