A captivating look inside the heart and mind of Harry Selfridge! Founder of one of the greatest department stores in the world, Harry Gordon Selfridge reopens his doors--and extravagant life--in this updated edition of his classic work. From his striking window displays during the holidays to his glittering love affairs with the most beautiful women in Europe, this book reveals the secrets behind his success as a tycoon. Filled with revolutionary thoughts about business, leadership, and society, Selfridge will inspire you with powerful aphorisms like: People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice. The boss drives his men; the leader coaches them. The customer is always right. With Mr. Selfridge's Romance of Commerce, you will uncover the innovative ideas that helped launch London's most iconic department store and that changed the lives of women and businessmen everywhere.

The Romance of Commerce by James Macdonald Oxley, first published in 1900, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

The Romance of Commerce By H. Gordon Selfridge To write on Commerce or Trade and do the subject justice would require more volumes than any library could hold, and involve more detail than any mind could grasp. It would be a history in extensor of the world's people from the beginning of time. For we are all merchants, and all races of men have been merchants in some form or another. The desire to trade seems to be inherent in man, as natural to him as the instinct of self-preservation, and from earliest recorded history we see trade and barter entering into and becoming part of the lives of men of all nations, and further, we see it as one of the most desirable objectives of the nations themselves. Ever since that moment when two individuals first lived upon this earth, one has had what the other wanted, and has been willing for a consideration to part with his possession. This is the principle underlying all trade however primitive, and all men, except the idlers, are merchants. We give this title exclusively to the man who buys and sells merchandise, but the artist sells the work of his brush and in this he is a merchant. The writer sells to any who will buy, let his ideas be what they will. The teacher sells his knowledge of books - often in too low a market - to those who would have this knowledge passed on to the young. The doctor must make an income to support himself and his family. He too is a merchant. His stock-in- trade is his intimate knowledge of the physical man and his skill to prevent or remove disabilities. He sells a part of his experience for a given sum to whomsoever seeks his advice. The lawyer sometimes knows the laws of the land and sometimes does not, but he sells his legal language, often accompanied by common sense, to the multitude who have not yet learned that a contentious nature may squander quite as successfully as the spendthrift. The statesman sells his knowledge of men and affairs, and the spoken or written exposition of his principles of Government; and he receives in return the satisfaction of doing what he can for his nation, and occasionally wins as well a niche in its temple of fame. The man possessing many lands, he especially would be a merchant in fact, and sell, but his is a merchandise which too often nowadays waits in vain for the buyer. The preacher, the lecturer, the actor, the estate agent, the farmer, the employee, all, all are merchants, all have something to dispose of at a profit to themselves, and the dignity of the business is decided by the manner in which they conduct the sale. To work is elevating. To accomplish is superb. To fill one's time with profitable enterprise is to leap for- ward in the world's race and to place beside one's name the credit mark of... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.