Background

Gerald Bartlett was born on the 16th of November in 1935 in England. According to the historical background, his surname has Norman origin. Gerald was about 10 years old when the Second World War ended and the recovery period started. That took a heavy toll on Gerald's personality.

Education

Gerald Bartlett was educated at the City of London School. After graduation in 1954, he turned down a scholarship to Trinity College in Cambridge and started his work at the bookshop sponsored by The Economist magazine and the London School of Economics.

Career

Gerald became a packer at the Economists' Bookshop in 1954. He was promoted to manager the next year, and when he was given the op­portunity to write a series of pamphlets on bookselling he began to gain influence in the industry.

In the 1960s in order to increase the professionalism of the book trade the head of the publishers, Hutchinson Robert Lusty invited Gerald Bartlett to edit a series of Better Bookselling pamphlets. Besides, in the years 1965 and 1966 Bartlett wrote important pieces about stock control and mail-order op­portunities, the latter an idea that was new back in the 1960s.

In 1966 Bartlett was elected to the Booksellers’ Association Council. In 1974 thanks to his innovative advocacy of the bookselling industry he became its youngest-ever president. Gerald Bartlett was 39 years old.

Bartlett continued to be the general manager of the Economists' Bookshop until his staff held a strike against the store that upset him so much he quit his post. After that he embarked on a writing career, penning short fiction and poetry, as well as satirical pieces, but never with as much success as his career as a bookseller.

Achievements

• Gerald Bartlett had a great impact on the industry of book trade. He was the first to create landmark volumes on mail order and stock control which until then had been almost unknown.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Better Bookselling

    (A series of nine pamphlets published in consultation with...)

    1969
  • Stock control in bookselling

    (The book covers important pieces about stock control in b...)

    1965
  • Bookselling by mail

    (The author describes mail-order op­portunities.)

    1966
  • What Happened at the Economist's Bookshop: A Story of Human and Industrial Relations in a Small Enterprise 1980

Views

From the Times it is known that Gerald Bartlett was a persistent fighter for better wages and a passionate supporter of training schemes while at the same time being fiercely opposed to the dogmatism of the trade unions.

Membership

• The Booksellers’ Association Council , United Kingdom

  1966

Personality

Gerald Bartlett was an earnest, brooding man recognized as an opinionated, forward-looking bookseller and an efficient leader. He was extremely dedicated to bookselling. Everything he was working on was done with great prudence.

As it is recollected in the obituary in the Times Gerald Bartlett was also known as "the most unsycophantic of men and as a working-class lad could not resist telling gentlemanly but amateurish publishers what he thought of their practices. They, in return, disdained him as a mere retailer."

Bartlett was quite reserved. His sense of humor was not revealed to everyone, but those who got to know him discovered it, along with his sensitivity.

Physical Characteristics: While being young Gerald had aggressively long hair. Basically he was careless of dress and appearance.

Connections

Gerald Bartlett was married three times. His third wife Caroline gave birth to their son.

Spouse:

Caroline Bartlett

Caroline became his third wife.

colleague:

Robert Lusty

Sir Robert Frith Lusty was a British journalist and publisher.