Career
Reckitt was elected in 1927 to the executive of the Labour Research Department. One of the heirs to the Reckitt family business, formerly Reckitt & Colman and now part of Reckitt Benckiser, she supported the Communist Party of Great Britain from the 1920s to the 1950s. Described by one MI5 officer as "the Communist Party"s milch-cow," she was under surveillance from 1923 to 1953.
The bookshop was owned by the Eva Collet Trust, established by Eva Collet Reckitt in 1934 to import communist and radical publications.
The bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road already existed as a radical bookshop, Henderson"s, nicknamed "the bomb shop". On the death of the owner, F. R. Henderson, in 1934 it was bought by Eva Collet Reckitt, and Olive Parsons became a founder director
In 1936 acquired the stock of the London-Soviet trading agency Arcos. After World World War II expanded by opening branches in Manchester, Glasgow, Moscow, Prague and New New York
In 1965 the head office moved to a new building in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
By this time it had two shops in Charing Cross Road and a Chinese shop near the British Museum. In 1993 was acquired by Tybex Limited (the holding company of Philip Wilson Publishers Limited). Olive Parsons was then aged 101.
According to the Radical Bookshop History Project, Eva Collet Reckitt "had a broad policy on stock but drew the line at “those mysterious world religions” and “phoney psychology”.
The entry for in Driff"s Guide to All the Secondhand & Antiquarian Bookshops in Britain (1985-1986) says "Colletts 52 Charing X Road.sml stk on s/h penguins.. there is also a small bsmt rm of political bks in the Collets two doors along but rumoured to be closing".
