John Sandoe Books

From the day John Sandoe opened the doors of his shop in 1957, it has been part of Chelsea’s cultural life. In the 1960s, Mary Quant was a regular customer; Mick Jagger, Muriel Spark, Tom Stoppard, Elton John, Edna O’Brien, Neil Tennant, William Boyd have all found books on our shelves and ordered others. Focusing primarily on the arts, our beautiful C18th shop accommodates about 30,000 different titles. Small rooms, Turkish rugs, wooden bookcases, spilling window boxes and winding staircases bring surprises and delights to the curious, while our staff are always on hand with knowledge and help. From paperbacks for local students to boxes for bibliophiles overseas, we deal with all books and all comers.

When John Sandoe first started the shop with Félicité Gwynne, sister of the cookery writer Elizabeth David, it occupied a single tiny space. We now occupy the two adjacent shops too and so the number of books we can offer has greatly increased. An early customer, recollecting the shop’s beginnings, said that Sandoe’s had “all the books one could ever hope to find in one place”: the shop has grown but the ethos remains the same. Sandoe’s is now one of London’s foremost and best-loved bookshops, offering a thoughtful and enticing selection of new books across the humanities, and a range of services that includes quarterly catalogues, mail order, subscriptions and private libraries.