Obituaries for Martin Stone (1946 - 2016) - Bookseller, book scout, legend of the rare book trade
The rare book trade has lost one of his most interesting and legendary personalities.
Martin Stone (11 December 1946, Woking, Surrey – 9 November 2016, Versailles, France) was an English guitarist and rare book dealer.
“Martin was a wonderful book seller/ runner /scout and a loveable human. We miss him badly already at our shop (Any Amount) where he would so often leave his suitcase when he came in from Paris on the Eurostar. Customers and old staff members are all saddened. I knew him for 30 years. When I first met him he had a lot of rock and punk connections (1977) and was known as a great guitarist. I remember when he came out of rehab in the 1990s all his confidence as a book scout was gone and he ran us books from Oxfam shops in Ealing and beyond– just paperbacks and Everymans at first but fairly soon he got his mojo back and when he found a £10K Baum he was back better than before and soon selling to much posher shops than us… Who can forget his wonderful stalls at the June Fairs? And his charm and smile? There was a legendary quality about him built up by people like Peter Howard and Iain Sinclair, Eric Korn and various Canadian dealers — he was dismissive about it but I knew he enjoyed it. He will not be forgotten.” (Nigel Burwood, Any Amount of Books, ABA, ILAB) Via Libri Blog
