{"id":93191,"date":"2016-01-05T17:11:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T22:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93191"},"modified":"2016-01-05T17:11:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T22:11:02","slug":"a-quasquicentennial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/a-quasquicentennial\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quasquicentennial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the start of the new year, Georgia\u2019s oldest bookstore turned 125. Horton\u2019s Books and Gifts is in Carrollton, west of Atlanta. Its founder,\u00a0N. A. Horton, was an undertaker who, in 1891, decided to sell schoolbooks in<\/em>\u00a0his other business\u2014which is to say, inside a funeral parlor. Although the store moved several times in its early days, it\u2019s returned a long while ago to that original location\u2014and, yes, it\u2019s said to be haunted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the course of its long history, Horton\u2019s has sold menswear, bridal apparel, and china, and while the mortuary component is defunct (or at least not well advertised), the store still has plenty of irons in the fire. Today, it sells notions and new books; it sources old books and offers book repair; it makes stationary; it notarizes. As one might hope, there\u2019s a caf\u00e9 and three on-site cats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bookstore has had only five owners in its history; the current proprietor,\u00a0Dorothy Pittman, has been there nineteen years. Until 2000, Pittman had thought the store was only\u00a0one<\/em>\u00a0of Georgia\u2019s oldest; when the American Bookstore Association notified her, she was under the impression Horton\u2019s had been founded in 1892. Microfiche at the University of Georgia confirmed their historic status. For its\u00a0quasquicentennial, they\u2019ll sell books for\u00a0$18.91. There is talk\u2014serious talk\u2014of a 12.5k run in March. If you\u2019d rather celebrate with considerably less physical effort, Horton\u2019s has an online store.<\/p>\n

In case you were wondering, by the way, the nation\u2019s oldest bookstore is Moravian Books, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The\u00a0world<\/em>\u00a0record-holder, meanwhile, is probably\u00a0Lisbon\u2019s Bertrand, at 250-plus years. This is the sort of case in which it\u2019s futile for America to compete with the Old World\u2014but I hope we can claim the honor of having far more funeral parlor\/bookstore hybrids.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of the new year, Georgia\u2019s oldest bookstore turned 125. Horton\u2019s Books and Gifts is in Carrollton, west of Atlanta. Its founder,\u00a0N. A. Horton, was an undertaker who, in 1891, decided to sell schoolbooks in\u00a0his other business\u2014which is to say, inside a funeral parlor. Although the store moved several times in its early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17,2574,20683,20685,221,20684,20686,12985,20687],"class_list":["post-93191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-books","tag-bookstores","tag-carrollton","tag-dorothy-pittman","tag-georgia","tag-hortons","tag-n-a-horton","tag-nineteenth-century","tag-quasquicentennial"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGeorgia\u2019s Oldest Bookstore Turns 125<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on Horton\u2019s Books, in Carrollton, GA.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/a-quasquicentennial\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Quasquicentennial by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 5, 2016 \u2013 At the start of the new year, Georgia\u2019s oldest bookstore turned 125. 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