Couple celebrate 25 years of antiquarian bookshop

HOW do you become an antiquarian bookseller?

Well, for Christiaan and Sam Jonkers it was easy as they have been surrounded by books almost all their lives.

Mr Jonkers started collecting books as a schoolboy and his wife, who was initially hesitant to join the trade, fell in love after helping out at her parents’ bookshop in Bolton.

The couple are now celebrating 25 years of running Jonkers Rare Books in Hart Street, Henley.

Jonkers, which first opened in 1998, is one of the world’s leading specialists in rare books and manuscripts and works with private collectors and institutions to enhance their collections.

The couple have worked with the British Library in London and the Bodleian Library in Oxford and their shop holds first editions of 20th century classics such as J R R Tolkien’s The Hobbit, J M Barrie’s Peter Pan and Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.

The books range in price from £10 to hundreds of thousands and the shop has tinted windows to protect the volumes on display.

The shop also has a burgeoning social media presence led by cataloguer Tom Ayling, who has a TikTok following of 300,000 people who watch his videos discussing some of the rare books the shop has in store and the stories behind them.

Mr and Mrs Jonkers first met through the antiquarian book trade, a world which they describe as very small and secretive.

Mr Jonkers said: “I started collecting books when I was quite young. I particularly collected cricket books, as it happens.

“Then I started buying first editions of books that I had read and enjoyed and then people would sort of look at what I’d done and say, ‘This is pretty good and how do I get into this?’

“So I sort of started helping friends and friends of friends and then it got to a stage where there were people that I barely knew.

“So they said, ‘Well, we really ought to pay you’ — and I was still at school while this was happening.”

Mr Jonkers worked on the beginnings of the business while an undergraduate at Oxford studying mathematics.

Mrs Jonkers, who studied modern languages and politics at Sheffield, said: “Neither of us read English at university. In fact, I don’t think any of us working here read English, but we all love books.”

Jonkers later merged with Bromlea Books, a bookshop in Bolton, which was set up in 1990 by Mrs Jonkers’s mother, who had worked as a librarian.

Bromlea Books specialised in children’s and illustrated books, which complemented the Jonkers expertise in 19th and 20th century literature. The shop briefly operated as Bromlea & Jonkers before reverting to Jonkers Rare Books when the couple married in 1999.

They now live in Lower Assendon and have two children, Charlotte, 23, and Annie, 16.

Mrs Jonkers said she was initially reluctant to join her parents’ business and had previously worked in the travel industry.

She said: “I never wanted to do it but after a brief stint helping them, I decided it was what I wanted to do after all.

“I worked alongside them and then became a partner in their business and that’s when Christiaan and I met. We were both booksellers and it’s quite a small world.”

The couple initially met at a book fair and after merging the businesses moved to Henley in 1997 and opening the shop at 24 Hart Street the following year.

Mr Jonkers said: “We looked at various options but, in the end, when 24 Hart Street became available, we thought that would be quite good not only as an office but also as a showcase for the sort of books that we had.

“Many people will just walk past the front of the shop having no idea of the sort of treasure trove that lies within — it’s full of museum quality books.”

The couple have a small team of staff, shop manager Elizabeth Lee and cataloguers Dr Jess Rooney, Mark Dolan and Mr Ayling.

Mr Jonkers said that one of the most memorable moments working in the shop had been trying to track down a copy of The Woman In White by William Wilkie Collins, an early Victorian detective novel.

He said: “We bought a a copy from another bookseller nearby and it was inscribed by Wilkie Collins, which is quite a thing in itself.

“There are very few copies of his novels that are inscribed. The way it was inscribed suggested that it might have been given to the person to whom the book was dedicated. That means it becomes the dedication copy and best copy of the book in the world. But it wasn’t actually inscribed as such so it was a matter of proving it.”

Mr Jonkers suspected the copy had belonged to Mr Collins’s friend and poet Bryan Waller Procter and managed to track down an auction catalogue from the Twenties selling some of Procter’s belongings.

“In it was this book,” he said. “So then it suddenly takes on a whole new life and becomes a far more important book than it would have been otherwise.”

Mrs Jonkers said that one of the most exciting parts of working as a book collector was visiting private collections.

She said: “You have no idea what you’re going to see. Sometimes you find that libraries you feel ought to have great important copies don’t necessarily and then in the most unprepossessing of places you can find complete gems with original artwork and beautiful painted
bindings.” In 2016, the couple decided to relocate the business, moving across Hart Street to number 27.

“We literally filled up boxes and ran across the road,” said Mrs Jonkers.

Mr Jonkers said: “The business had grown considerably and we were bursting at the seams in number 24 so we jumped at the chance as our new shop is about twice the size. We spent a year renovating and future-proofing the property.”

The shop often has people bringing in books to have them valued but the business rarely buys these.

“Almost every day people bring books in or ring us up or email us,” said Mr Jonkers.

“Sometimes people contact us knowing that they’ve got something of value. Often, they’re just hoping.

“So the vast majority of what we’re offered is simply not suitable for us. I usually reckon we’ll probably buy about one in every 10,000 books.”

Mr Jonkers said the business prided itself on only buying the best quality books whether for big or small collectors.

He said: “It’s almost like there are two businesses running concurrently. The core of our business is helping customers, big institutional libraries and private collectors, build up their collections, finding unique books for them and advising them. But we also have exactly the same ethos when buying books for the shop and for our collectors — we really only buy the best of their type.

“What distinguishes our business is the fact that it comes from a point of view of knowledge and expertise and that applies whether the book is £50 or £50,000.”