Something Wholesale : My Life and Times in the Rag Trade. This item is unavailable.Something Wholesale : My Life and Times in the Rag Trade

An overview of the adventures of Eric Newby during his time as a commercial traveller working in the world of haute couture for the family firm of Lane and Newby, from his repatriation as a prisoner-of-war in 1945 until he embarked on his walk in the Hindu Kush in 1956. Last published in 1985.

Back from World War II, young Eric Newby fell into a funk, moping at his parents’ home and daydreaming about becoming a traveler. Fed–up, the elder Newbys one day made him one: “We’re sending you to Sheffield with the Gown Collection.” And thus began his improbable, hilarious career as a commercial traveler for the antediluvian family firm, Lane & Newby Ltd., “Mantle Manufacturers and Wholesale Costumiers.” Something Wholesale, originally published in 1962 and added to in the ’70s and ’80s, is one of the sweetest, funniest, and most touchingly unassuming memoirs I’ve ever read. (If you just want to call it Newby’s best book, there’ll be no argument from us.)