Charles Lahr

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For the American mathematician, see Charles Dwight Lahr.

Charles Lahr
Born
Carl Lahr

(1885-07-27)July 27, 1885
Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany
Died1971 (1972)
London, England
CitizenshipGerman, then stateless[1]
OccupationBookseller and publisher
MovementAnarchist
Spouse(s)Esther Archer

Charles Lahr (27 July 1885 – 1971), born Carl Lahr, was a German-born anarchist, London bookseller and publisher.[2]

Lahr was born at Bad Nauheim in the Rhineland, the eldest of 15 children in a farming family.[2] He left Germany in 1905 to avoid military service and went to London, England where he lived until his death in 1971.[1]

In London he encountered the anarchist Guy Aldred (1886–1963), while working as a baker.[3][4] He was soon (1907) under police observation.[5] He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1914; at that time he had a bookshop in Hammersmith.[1]

In 1915 he was interned for four years as an enemy alien in Alexandra Palace. In 1920-22 he was briefly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain; he was excluded from membership in October 1922 on the grounds of 'political unreliability'.[6] His interest in politics led him to befriend many left-wing thinkers, several of whom went on to establish important left-wing groups in the UK. 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).

He married in 1922 Esther Argeband,[7] (at that time Archer), whom he had met at the Charlotte Street Socialist Club. She was a Jewish factory worker from East London.[1] They were close friends of William Roberts, the artist, and his wife, and William's portrait of Esther is in the Tate Gallery.

From 1925 to 1927 Lahr published The New Coterie literary and artistic magazine. In 1931 he founded the Blue Moon Press, a small press; amongst the books he published was the first edition of a small book of poems by D. H. Lawrence called Pansies.

In subsequent misfortunes Lahr was convicted in 1935 on a charge of receiving stolen books, and was sentenced to 6 months in prison.[8] He was interned again in the Second World War. Lehr believed the internments was based on his German background and anarchist beliefs.[1]

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.

He died in London in 1971. His funeral was attended by many representatives from left wing groups in the UK.

There is substantial further information on Lahr in a book authored by his daughter Sheila. This is called Yealm and can be read in its entirety on the Militant Esthetix website, run by Lahr's granddaughter Esther Leslie.

Lahr's papers are held by the University of London.

Notes[]

  1. ^ a b c d e Osborne, Huw Edwin (2015). "6. Counter-Space in Charles Lahr's Progressive Bookshop". The Rise of the Modernist Bookshop: Books and the Commerce of Culture in the Twentieth Century. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 131–162. ISBN 978-1-4724-4700-5. OCLC 913698256.
  2. ^ a b Lahr, Sheila (2015). "1. Beginnings". Yealm: A Sorterbiography. London: UNKANT Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9926509-4-0. OCLC 1008877170.
  3. ^ Lahr, Charles, 1885-1971 | libcom.org
  4. ^ Heath, Nick (22 September 2004). "Lahr, Charles, 1885-1971". libcom.org. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  5. ^ Fishman, William J. (2004). East End Jewish radicals 1875-1914. Nottingham, England: Five Leaves Publications. p. 271. ISBN 0-907123-45-7. OCLC 56965280.
  6. ^ The Communist (London), 28 October 1922, p. 8.
  7. ^ Kadish, Sharman (1992). Bolsheviks and British Jews : the Anglo-Jewish community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution. London, England: Frank Cass & Co. p. 235. ISBN 0-7146-3371-2. OCLC 23765944.
  8. ^ AIM25: Senate House Library, University of London: Lahr, Charles

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