Although the Duke of Wellington and the queen herself are counted among its customers, Hatchards, the oldest bookseller in the city (1797), is noted for its signed first editions, as well as for its famous shoplifters: An 18-year-old Noël Coward was apprehended as he stuffed a suitcase full of books. (Characteristically, he talked his way out of trouble.) It has been trading since 1801 at its current location, which means it was selling books before Hardy, Dickens, or the Brontës were writing them. Virginia Woolf wrote about it, too, in Mrs Dalloway. You’ll find it not far west of Waterstones.