Over Bemerton's is a warm, comic portrait of London life seen through a second-hand bookseller's shop and the odd, affectionate world that gathers around it. When the narrator comes searching for quiet rooms near Queen Anne's Gate, Naomi and Mrs. Duckie extol the comforts above Bemerton's with irresistible logic: a bath, a good fire, a corner view, and a bookseller below for the insomniac reader. He yields, buys books for luck, and finds himself settled into a place where chance, taste, and companionship seem perfectly aligned. From there the book opens out into a vivid domestic circle. Naomi—beautiful, practical, charitable, and quietly commanding—anchors a household that includes the formidable lawyer Alderley Wynne, the lively Drusilla, and sons whose temperaments range from genial to restless. The narrator's return to London brings delight, irony, and nostalgia, while theatre nights, fashionable visitors, and the eccentricities of modern recreation add social sparkle. But the shop itself remains central: a place of interruptions, dubious sellers, comic deceptions, and poignant human need, where books are traded as much in sentiment as in money. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Lucas, E. V.

E. V. Lucas, born Edward Verrall Lucas in 1868 and educated in modest circumstances in southern England, built a remarkably varied literary career that carried him from journalism and editing into the heart of Edwardian letters. After early work as a reporter and contributor to magazines, he became known for his deft essays, witty sketches, light verse, travel writing, children’s books, and literary criticism, as well as for his long and influential association with The London Magazine. His prose is marked by elegance, humor, and a gentle, observant intelligence, qualities that made him one of the most readable essayists of his time. Lucas often wrote about everyday life, books, landscapes, friendship, and the oddities of human behavior, finding charm in the ordinary and turning small moments into memorable reflections. That gift still feels fresh today, especially in an age that values clarity, wit, and humane insight. He also played an important role in shaping literary taste, helping to introduce and support other writers while maintaining a distinctive voice of his own. Lucas’s legacy endures in the ease and grace of his style and in his belief that literature can be both entertaining and deeply attentive to life. Readers who enjoy polished essayists, urbane humor, and thoughtful observations on the pleasures of reading and living will find him especially rewarding.