Charles Lahr
{{Short description|German anarchist, bookseller and publisher}}
{{for|the American mathematician|Charles Dwight Lahr}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Charles Lahr
| image = Charles Lahr.jpg
| caption = Lahr in 1947
| birth_name = Carl Lahr
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1885|07|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1971|08|15|1885|07|27|df=y}}
| death_place = Muswell Hill, London, England
| citizenship = German, then stateless
| occupation = Bookseller and publisher
| movement = Anarchist
| spouse = {{Marriage|Esther Archer|1922}}
}}
Charles Lahr (27 July 1885 – 15 August 1971), born Carl Lahr, was a German-born Jewish anarchist, London bookseller and publisher.
Biography
Lahr was born at Bad Nauheim in the Rhineland, the eldest of 15 children "of peasant stock".{{Cite book|last=Lahr|first=Sheila|url=http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/yealm/yealm1.htm|title=Yealm: A Sorterbiography|publisher=UNKANT Publishers|year=2015|isbn=978-0-9926509-4-0|location=London|chapter=1. Beginnings|oclc=1008877170}} He left Germany in 1905 to avoid military service and went to London, England, where he lived until his death in 1971.{{Cite book|last=Osborne|first=Huw Edwin|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/913698256|title=The Rise of the Modernist Bookshop: Books and the Commerce of Culture in the Twentieth Century|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|year=2015|isbn=978-1-4724-4700-5|location=Farnham|pages=131–162|chapter=6. Counter-Space in Charles Lahr's Progressive Bookshop|oclc=913698256}}
In London he encountered the anarchist Guy Aldred (1886–1963) while working as a baker.{{Cite web|last=Heath|first=Nick|date=22 September 2004|title=Lahr, Charles, 1885-1971|url=http://libcom.org/history/articles/1885-1971-charles-lahr|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-19|website=libcom.org|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012022047/http://libcom.org/history/articles/1885-1971-charles-lahr |archive-date=12 October 2008 }} He was soon (1907) under police observation.{{Cite book|last=Fishman|first=William J.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56965280|title=East End Jewish radicals 1875-1914|publisher=Five Leaves Publications|year=2004|isbn=0-907123-45-7|location=Nottingham, England|pages=271|oclc=56965280|author-link=William J. Fishman}} He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1914; at that time he had a bookshop in Hammersmith.
In 1915, he was interned for four years as an enemy alien in Alexandra Palace. Between 1920 and 1922 he was briefly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, however, he was excluded from membership in October 1922 on the grounds of 'political unreliability'.The Communist (London), 28 October 1922, p. 8. His interest in politics led him to befriend many left-wing thinkers, several of whom went on to establish important left-wing groups in Great Britain. In 1921, he took over the Progressive Bookshop in Red Lion Street, Holborn. From there he would branch out into publishing, and establish many literary friendships (including H. E. Bates, Rhys Davies, T. F. Powys) and D. H. Lawrence. At one point, when Lahr was in financial difficulties, his writer friends gathered a collection of stories together and published these as Charles Wain (1933).{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
He was married in 1922 to Esther Argeband,{{Cite book|last=Kadish|first=Sharman|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/23765944|title=Bolsheviks and British Jews : the Anglo-Jewish community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution|publisher=Frank Cass & Co.|year=1992|isbn=0-7146-3371-2|location=London, England|pages=235|oclc=23765944}} (at that time Archer), whom he had met at the Charlotte Street Socialist Club. She was a Jewish factory worker from East London. They were close friends of William Roberts, the artist, and his wife, and William's portrait of Esther is in the Tate Gallery.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
From 1925 to 1927 Lahr published The New Coterie literary and artistic magazine. In 1931, he founded a small press, the Blue Moon Press. Amongst the books published by Blue Moon was the first edition of a small book of poems by D. H. Lawrence called Pansies.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
In subsequent misfortunes, Lahr was convicted in 1935 on a charge of receiving stolen books and was sentenced to 6 months in prison.{{Cite web |url=http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=1996&inst_id=14 |title=AIM25: Senate House Library, University of London: Lahr, Charles |access-date=9 January 2008 |archive-date=6 January 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050106120025/http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=1996&inst_id=14 |url-status=dead }} He was interned again in the Second World War. Lahr believed the internment was based on his German background and anarchist beliefs.
In a short story from Something Short and Sweet (published 1937), H. E. Bates describes the court case, with Lahr called "Oscar" in the story. The bookshop was bombed in 1941. He moved its premises several times in London.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
He died at home in Muswell Hill, London on 15 August 1971.{{Cite news |date=1971-08-16 |title=Happy bookseller |pages=12 |work=Evening Standard |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/721581802/ |via=Newspapers.com}} His funeral was attended by many representatives from left wing groups in the UK. His granddaughter is Esther Leslie.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
Lahr's papers are held by the University of London.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
Notes
Further reading
- {{cite journal |last1=Goodway |first1=David |title=Charles Lahr: Anarchist, Bookseller, Publisher |journal=London Magazine |date=1977 |series=n.s. |volume=June/July |page=46-55}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Hilliard |first1=Christopher |title=The literary underground of 1920s London |journal=Social History |date=2008 |volume=33 |issue=2 |page=164-182
|doi=10.1080/03071020802027579 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071020802027579 |access-date=4 June 2024|url-access=subscription }}
- {{cite book |last1=Gostick |first1=Chris |title=ʺTF Powys's Favourite Bookseller: The Story of Charles Lahrʺ |date=2009 |publisher=Cecil Woolf Publishers |location=London}}
- {{cite book |last1=Osborne |first1=Huw |editor1-last=Osborne |editor1-first=Huw |title=The rise of the modernist bookshop |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, Oxfordshire |isbn=978-1-4724-4699-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHy1CwAAQBAJ&q=The+rise+of+the+modernist+bookshop |access-date=4 June 2024 |chapter=Counter-space in Charles Lahr's progressive bookshop}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Goodway |first1=David |title=Revisiting Charles Lahr |journal=The Powys Journal |date=2021 |volume=31 |pages=124–151 |jstor=27033272 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27033272 |access-date=4 June 2024}}
External links
- [https://archive.today/20121223022424/http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/dispatcher.aspx?action=search&database=ChoiceArchive&search=IN=MS985 Catalogue of Lahr's papers at the University of London]
- [http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/yealm/CONTENTS.htm Sheila Lahr, Yealm]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lahr, Charles}}
Category:Industrial Workers of the World members
Category:Emigrants from the German Empire to the United Kingdom
Category:People from Bad Nauheim