How eccentric Melbourne entrepreneur created book superstore that was part shop, part circus
With talking birds, live monkeys, a hall of mirrors and live bands, the famous Cole’s Book Arcade in Bourke St was more than a bookshop — it was an event. And EW Cole was the eccentric man behind it all.
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If Willy Wonka created a bookshop instead of a chocolate factory, it may well have looked like Melbourne’s famed Cole’s Book Arcade.
It wasn’t merely a shop, but a must-see destination for any visitor to the city.
The brainchild of eccentric entrepreneur EW Cole, the three-storey shop in the heart of Melbourne in the late 19th century was part department store and part circus.
The wildly imaginative Edward William Cole, better known as EW Cole, is the subject of the latest episode of the free In Black and White podcast, out today.
Described as the world’s first book superstore, the shop featured talking birds, live monkeys, a hall of mirrors, live bands, a lolly shop, a music department and much more.
Like in many modern bookshops, customers were welcome to stay and read books from the shelves for as long as they liked.
There was even a Chinese tea salon – a deliberate dig at the White Australia policy, which Cole vehemently opposed.
Perhaps his most famous creation was Cole’s Funny Picture Book, which entertained generations of Australians and became a dog-eared favourite for hundreds of thousands of readers.
The first edition of the one-shilling book was released with great fanfare on Christmas Eve, 1879, and billed as the “cheapest child’s picture book ever published”.
The whimsical book was filled with drawings, poems, stories, puzzles and games, but at times there was a sinister edge.
Among the pages of innocent fun are dark little tales and cartoons, including a whipping machine that can whip 1000 boys an hour.
Born in England in 1832, Cole came to Australia in 1852 at age 20 to join Victoria’s Gold Rush, but his career took a literary detour.
Cole started his first book shop in 1865 at the Eastern Market in Melbourne, with a stock of 600 volumes.
He opened Cole’s Book Arcade in 1883 and it grew into one of the world’s biggest book shops.
It was regarded by many as the best book shop in the world in the prosperous 1880s when the city was known as Marvellous Melbourne, and among its visitors were celebrated writers Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain.
Cole self-published books on topics as varied as gardening, cookery, medicine, race relations and politics with his own printing machines.
He died in 1918 a wealthy man, a month after the 48th edition of Cole’s Funny Picture Book was released.
— Find out more by listening to today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here or Spotify here or on your favourite platform.
And listen to our previous podcasts including “Australia’s Willy Wonka”, chocolate king Macpherson Robertson, the “real Sherlock Holmes”, Melbourne police detective John Christie, and the colourful past of an Essendon trainer.
Check out In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday to see more stories from our fascinating past.
inblackandwhite@heraldsun.com.au