Specialist Dance Books shop finally closes

The specialist book supplier Dance Books is finally closing up, due to the ill health of its longtime proprietor. David Leonard’s little shop long embellished Cecil Court, one of the alleys of literature off Charing Cross Road, London, until 10 years ago he moved out to a former bakery in Hampshire focusing on publishing Dance Now, the last serious dance magazine of ideas, and mail order books retail.

Though Dance Now closed two years ago, the company has continued and says it will continue to publish and distribute specialist dance volumes, which currently range from creative insights into significant modern choreography to histories of 19th-century West End ballet and 1920s Soviet choreographers, via collections of letters by dance giants and DVDs on technique and performance.

Leonard asks, in his farewell announcement, that “any eccentric millionaires out there who’ve always dreamt of running an online dance bookselling company, do feel free to get in touch.” He adds that much of the shop’s back catalogue is being cleared out at hugely reduced prices over the next few weeks.

• The Dance Books website