modern, he thinks, and the cracked pane of glass in the door will need fixing as well. Once inside, he is disappointed to find the space smaller than he expected, narrower and darker than his Boston shop. And the smell surprises him. It will take some effort to expel the pungent aroma of boot polish and mildew and rotted stockings. But here, at least, he will not find himself in daily contest with the Old Corner Bookstore, will not have to compete for the attention of the customers who frequent Ticknor's cluttered rooms, which, as Eliot recollects with some consolation, are not without their own malodorous history.
The building in which William Davis Ticknor runs his bookstore has stood at the corner of School and Washington Streetssince 1718, when it began as Thomas Crease's Apothecary, and patrons of the Old Corner Bookstore can still smell the abrasive chemical perfume beneath the more alluring scent of leather bindings and ink and slowly moldering paper stored in the printing house on the second floor. But the stink does not keep the eminent writers of New England from gathering there for readings and conversation. Eliot knows his Boston shop will never become a meetinghouse for the likes of Longfellow and Holmes and the other literati who lounge about Ticknor's as if it were a public drawing room. But he also knows that a customer with a full purse wants something more than the privilege of mixing in famous company; he desires items that cannot be found anywhere else, and Eliot has become proficient at attending to these needs. He would happily open his doors for a lone, paying customer before letting in a hoard of poets with empty pockets. Still, he cannot help believing that things should have turned out otherwise, that the Old Corner Bookstore should, rightfully, be his.
He has worked through the fantasy a thousand times, and though he tries not to dwell on it, the suspicion that he was swindled out of his destiny claws at him from within, like a tiny spur of bone at the base of his skull. A decade earlier, Eliot fully expected that, in due time, he would be made a partner in Carter, Hendee & Co. He had, after all, given five years of loyal service to Timothy Carter and Charles Hendee, who then owned the Old Corner Bookstore and the publishing enterprise on its upper floors. Eliot had envisioned what he would do at the helm of the company; he made imaginary lists of the great literary works he would publish and the new authors he would discover. He never dreamed that William Davis Ticknor—a man with little experience in publishing—would take over the business with the help of Carter's older brother. When Ticknor, Allen, and Carter purchased Carter, Hendee & Co., they announced that, henceforth,they would publish books of medical interest only. Eliot foresaw a dreadful future for himself, editing the cramped scribblings of ghoulish surgeons, surrounded by tedious engravings of frog bladders and misshapen tumors. So he set out on his own, certain that Ticknor's shop would founder within a few months and that the Old Corner Bookstore would soon be placed on auction. But Eliot had been wrong.
William Davis Ticknor unexpectedly turned his attention to literature and began publishing poetry and novels, respected works by masters and new works by famous Americans. Next to the latest editions of
Collins's Treatise on Midwifery, Lisfranc's Diseases of the Uterus, Bigelow's Manual of Orthopedic Surgery
, and
Tuson's Dissector's Guide
, Ticknor crammed his shelves with handsome fifty-cent editions of Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Words worth, Leigh Hunt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bronson Alcott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The writers whom Eliot once imagined would gather at
his
store—to discuss their work, to weigh the merits of the newest author venturing into print, or to hear Eliot himself read from his latest play—flocked instead to the Old Corner Bookstore.
The injustice was made complete when Ticknor promoted
The building in which William Davis Ticknor runs his bookstore has stood at the corner of School and Washington Streetssince 1718, when it began as Thomas Crease's Apothecary, and patrons of the Old Corner Bookstore can still smell the abrasive chemical perfume beneath the more alluring scent of leather bindings and ink and slowly moldering paper stored in the printing house on the second floor. But the stink does not keep the eminent writers of New England from gathering there for readings and conversation. Eliot knows his Boston shop will never become a meetinghouse for the likes of Longfellow and Holmes and the other literati who lounge about Ticknor's as if it were a public drawing room. But he also knows that a customer with a full purse wants something more than the privilege of mixing in famous company; he desires items that cannot be found anywhere else, and Eliot has become proficient at attending to these needs. He would happily open his doors for a lone, paying customer before letting in a hoard of poets with empty pockets. Still, he cannot help believing that things should have turned out otherwise, that the Old Corner Bookstore should, rightfully, be his.
He has worked through the fantasy a thousand times, and though he tries not to dwell on it, the suspicion that he was swindled out of his destiny claws at him from within, like a tiny spur of bone at the base of his skull. A decade earlier, Eliot fully expected that, in due time, he would be made a partner in Carter, Hendee & Co. He had, after all, given five years of loyal service to Timothy Carter and Charles Hendee, who then owned the Old Corner Bookstore and the publishing enterprise on its upper floors. Eliot had envisioned what he would do at the helm of the company; he made imaginary lists of the great literary works he would publish and the new authors he would discover. He never dreamed that William Davis Ticknor—a man with little experience in publishing—would take over the business with the help of Carter's older brother. When Ticknor, Allen, and Carter purchased Carter, Hendee & Co., they announced that, henceforth,they would publish books of medical interest only. Eliot foresaw a dreadful future for himself, editing the cramped scribblings of ghoulish surgeons, surrounded by tedious engravings of frog bladders and misshapen tumors. So he set out on his own, certain that Ticknor's shop would founder within a few months and that the Old Corner Bookstore would soon be placed on auction. But Eliot had been wrong.
William Davis Ticknor unexpectedly turned his attention to literature and began publishing poetry and novels, respected works by masters and new works by famous Americans. Next to the latest editions of
Collins's Treatise on Midwifery, Lisfranc's Diseases of the Uterus, Bigelow's Manual of Orthopedic Surgery
, and
Tuson's Dissector's Guide
, Ticknor crammed his shelves with handsome fifty-cent editions of Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Words worth, Leigh Hunt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bronson Alcott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The writers whom Eliot once imagined would gather at
his
store—to discuss their work, to weigh the merits of the newest author venturing into print, or to hear Eliot himself read from his latest play—flocked instead to the Old Corner Bookstore.
The injustice was made complete when Ticknor promoted
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