Iris Pemberton
Founder, rare books
Worked twelve years at a London antiquarian dealer before moving to Hudson with her husband and a single suitcase of books. Reads almost exclusively in cloth.
The shop
A small bookshop on Warren Street.
Foxglove opened in the spring of 2014 in a narrow building on Warren Street that had previously been, in order: a tailor, a bicycle shop, a flower stall, and an empty room with a hand-lettered sign that read 'AVAILABLE.' Iris signed the lease the day she walked in, before she'd even priced the shelving.
We started with a borrowed counter, four full bookcases, and a single shelf labeled, perhaps too ambitiously, RARE. Eleven years later, the shop has more shelves, a back room with a door, and a small but growing reputation among collectors of modern firsts.
We are still small. Three booksellers, one cat, one rotating intern, and somewhere between five and six thousand books on any given Saturday morning.
- Books on the shelf
- 5,400
- In the Reading Room
- 412
- Years on Warren St.
- 11
- Shop cat (Folio)
- 1
The Reading Room
A small but serious rare books room.
The Reading Room — what we call the rare books room — is a small wood-panelled space at the back of the shop. It holds about four hundred books at a time. Modern firsts, signed editions, mid-century imprints, and the occasional 18th- or 19th-century book that we've found particularly worth keeping.
Anyone is welcome to browse. We don't rope it off, we don't lock the cabinets, and we'd rather you spend an unhurried half hour with a single book than walk out with three you didn't actually want.
If you're new to collecting, we will happily talk you through the difference between a first edition and a first printing, what 'Fine in DJ' actually means, and which authors are worth chasing right now and which are best left on the shelf.
Who’s in the shop
Three booksellers, one cat.
Pem Asante
General manager, fiction & poetry
Joined Foxglove in 2018. Previously a book reviewer at a magazine you've heard of. Runs the Friday-night book club.
Hannah Mireille
Children's & events
Came to bookselling from a decade as a children's librarian. Hand-sells the picture book section like it's life or death. It might be.
The simplest way
Come by the shop. Browse for an afternoon. Bring a question. We’ll be on Warren Street.