Driffs Guide Charing Cross Road by Xavier Driffield (1 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Two Driff items as follows: 1. "drif's guide" 1991 "The Only Guide that's Been There". 308 pages 11 x 15 cm (image 1)., 2. "Not 84 Charing Cross Road". 162 pages 15 x 21 cm. Sold as a Pair. [Many of our readers will remember Driff, especially along The Kings Road in the 1980's.! Driffield started as a book searcher, obtaining titles to order for private customers, and in 1984 began producing a self-published guide to All The Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookshops in Britain (also titled In Quest of the Perfect Book : The Antiquarian Bookshop Catalog & Directory). Hugely successful for its wit and wide coverage of the field, the guide was nonetheless idiosyncratic and often sarcastic, with entries such as: "the b[oo]ks are slowly transforming themselves back into rags"; "judging by body temp, shop seems to have expired in 1930"; "I could smell a bargain, pity was I had a cold that day"; "owner has been unwell recently with bad back (possibly caused by turning on the customers once too often)". [Xavier Driffield (1948 - 2023), also known as Driff Field, drif field, driffield, dryfeld or simply Drif, was a figure in the British bookdealing world during the 1980s and 1990s and published several editions of the acerbic Driff's Guide to secondhand and antiquarian bookshops in Britain. Here is his First Catalogue featuring the Beat Generation. P.S. His jokes were sometimes over the top, for example, next to a bookseller "Farts". This being short for "Follows Around Recommending The Stock", this getting him into legal trouble on one occasion I recall.! Sold as a pair.