Gordon Cairnie: 1896-1973

Gordon Cairnie, owner of the world-famous Grolier Book Shop at 6 Plympton Street, died Friday, July 13 at 6 p.m. at his Belmont home. He was 77 years old.

In 1927 he opened his shop with 2800 books he had accumulated as a student, and ran it until his death. The Grolier, which specialized in poetry, was one of the last of the cafes for literati. Marianne Moore, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsburg, James Tate Robert Bly '50, Conrad Alken '11, Robert Graves and Richard Wilbur often frequented the cozy one-room shop.

For many aspiring writers, Cairnie was a father figure as well as confidante. William Alfred, professor of English, said that when he was a student, Cairnie offered graduate students and writers extensive credit on faith that their works would some day pay off.

Cairnie came to the School of Landscape Design at Harvard from Caticook, Quebec, in the 1920s. He soon abandoned his studies and devoted all his energies to his books. He was an honorary member of the Signet Society. The Advocate along with several other national literary reviews dedicated issues to him.

He was buried in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are interred.