G. David Bookseller

Gustave David, a thirty-six-year-old Parisian, began buying and selling books on the Cambridge Market in 1896. As trade grew he opened a bookshop with his son Hubert David in St Edward's Passage, where the business still stands. The market stall ceased trading in 1981, but the shop continued to flourish in its passage off the market square. Today the firm is run by Gustave's great grandson David Asplin and his business partner Neil Adams. David joined in 1968 and Neil in 1979, and between them they count over 100 years of bookselling in Cambridge. The stock ranges across antiquarian books, including first editions of works by Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, and natural history and travel books with engravings. Second hand books fill the general shelves, and new books are sold at reduced prices. Antiquarian prints and maps form a further department, with a large collection of original engravings of Cambridge and its colleges and thousands of prints and maps on other subjects. The shop remains a meeting place for bibliophiles from many countries, and it continues to buy single volumes and whole libraries from private sellers.