JOY, Thomas Alfred 1904-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 30, 1904, in Oxford, England; died April 15, 2003, in Twickenham, Middlesex, England. Bookseller and author. Joy was well known in England as the former book manager at Harrod's and managing director of Hatchards. Born to a family of limited means, he went to private school at Bedford House with the help of a choral scholarship. He left school at the age of fourteen to work at the Bodleian Library. Finding library work not to his taste, he became an indentured apprentice for the university booksellers J. Thornton & Son, where, except for a year as head of mail orders for A. & F. Denny booksellers in London in 1926, he remained until 1935. Joy joined Harrod's as manager of its circulating library in 1935 and was manager of the book department from 1942 to 1946. He then spent the next twenty years at Army and Navy Stores in London, where he managed the book department, was founder of its library service, and worked as deputy managing director from 1956 to 1965. From 1965 to 1985 he was managing director for Hatchards Limited, helping to make the struggling company profitable again. Joy was an expert on books of Asian interest and, although on first impression he could seem pompous and unapproachable, proved himself to always be kind and eager to help his patrons, some of which included members of the royal family. He was the author of several books about bookselling, including Bookselling (1953) and The Bookselling Business (1974), as well as the memoir Mostly Joy (1971).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 12th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), May 2, 2003, p. 22.

Times (London, England), May 3, 2003, p. 43.