Out now!
The Bookseller’s Apprentice
Book 2 — 1871
Inspired by Melbourne’s first version of the iconic Queen Victoria Market, this historical fantasy novel is ideal for readers aged nine to twelve. This prequel to The Grandest Bookshop in the World can be enjoyed by both fans and newcomers.
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The Story
Someday, Billy Pyke will be a scholar of Australian history, and the manager of the grandest bookshop in the world.
But in 1871, he’s twelve years old, and struggling under the burden of his parents’ expectations as the eldest of seven children. He’s happiest at work in Paddy's Market — the loud, smelly, marvellous heart of Melbourne — where he uses his skills in magic to organise the book stall run by eccentric Mr Cole.
When Billy meets Kezia Nobody, a talented young seamstress, she warns him of a sinister magician called the Obscurosmith. At first, Billy can't believe her stories of magical deals gone horribly wrong — but then he sees them happening.
And the night that the Obscurosmith crosses a terrifying and dangerous line, endangering the lives of everybody in the market, Billy realises that if he wants the Obscurosmith stopped, he'll have to do it himself.
Read the first chapter and enter Paddy’s Market …
‘The Eastern Market from top of Whittington Tavern,’ lithograph by James Buckingham Philp, 1864 — via State Library of Victoria. Market at left, Haymarket Theatre at right, unpaved Bourke Street in foreground.
The Inspiration
Before Melbourne’s iconic Queen Victoria Market, there was Paddy’s Market on Bourke Street — a hectic carnival of fresh food, entertainment, music, livestock and crime. It was often called the Eastern Market or the Hay Market. Melbourne’s urban layout was specifically designed to prevent the poor from gathering and fomenting revolution in a designated space like a city square, so the market became a haven for cultural exchange and social connection.
At various times in its history, Paddy’s Market was host to fortune tellers, medicine showmen, carnival games, street performers, magicians, taxidermists and tailors. From 1865, one of the most popular stalls in the market was Edward William Cole’s book stall — the humble beginnings of what would one day become Cole’s Book Arcade.
Cole’s book stall was so successful that he was soon able to expand the business, and hired William Thomas Pyke as his first employee. William was, in his own words, ‘just a kid at the time.’ He became general manager of Cole’s Book Arcade at the age of sixteen, when an older staff member quit on the day of Cole’s wedding, and retained the position for the rest of his working life.
‘Eastern Market scene,’ wood engraving print, Ebenezer and David Syme in The Australian, March 28, 1867 — via State Library of Victoria.