Meet the face of the Heywood Hill bookstore brand in Asia
Charlotte Merritt, bookseller-at-large for store where Nancy Mitford wrote two novels, sees a bright future for it in Hong Kong, with its 'very well-educated and culturally engaged audience'
The world's smallest global bookshop has come to Hong Kong. If you're wondering why you haven't stumbled across it, that's because Heywood Hill in Hong Kong is not a bricks-and-mortar shop. What it does have is bibliophile Charlotte Merritt, who is the company's first bookseller-at-large and the face of the brand in Asia.
Merritt is a natural fit for the role. She has a master's degree in literature from Edinburgh University and spent three years as marketing manager at Bloomsbury Publishing during the peak years of Harry Potter hysteria. From there, she moved to Hodder & Stoughton as head of marketing where she promoted authors such as Booker Prize-nominated David Mitchell and commercial heavy hitter John le Carré.
It's her ability to appreciate a range of authors that will serve her well in her new role. Her journalist husband's job took her to Mumbai for a few years and the family - two young children in tow - arrived in Hong Kong 18 months ago.
The actual Heywood Hill bookshop is in London and occupies two floors of a Georgian townhouse on Curzon Street in Mayfair. Novelist Nancy Mitford famously worked at the bookstore, founded in 1936 by Heywood Hill, during the 1940s and wrote a couple of books there - The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949) are both thought to be influenced by her years at the store.
Mitford's presence ensured that it became a hub for literary London and caught the attention of the Andrew Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire - Nancy's elder sister Deborah was married to the duke. Cavendish took a stake in the bookshop and in 1991 became the majority shareholder.