Christina Foyle

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Christina Agnes Lilian Foyle (30 January 1911–June 8, 1999) was an English bookseller and owner of Foyles bookshop.

Miss Foyle (as she liked to be called) was born in London. At age 17, after leaving a Swiss finishing school, she started working at her father's bookshop, and never left. The store, Foyles, on Charing Cross Road in the West End of London, had been started in 1904 by her father, William Foyle. It grew to 30 miles of shelves of books under her management. It was not known for modern practices and Miss Foyle did not allow books to be ordered over the telephone. Clerks were made to fill in all sales slips by hand.

For 70 years she presided over Foyles lunches. Her idea for bringing readers, writers and thinkers together came after she recommended The Forsyte Saga to an elderly customer who was looking for something to read on the train. The gentleman bought a copy. However he returned it to her a short time later with the words "For the young lady who liked my book — John Galsworthy."

Miss Foyle met many leading literary and political figures over her life. Her collection of personal correspondence included a letter from Adolf Hitler, responding to her complaint about Nazi book-burning. Her literary friends included Kingsley Amis, Charles de Gaulle, D. H. Lawrence, Yehudi Menuhin, J. B. Priestley, George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Thatcher, Evelyn Waugh and H. G. Wells.

Despite numerous unique and often infuriating business practices (such as arranging books by publisher and requiring customers to queue in three separate linees to buy a book) she managed to keep Foyles alive while many other bookshops were closing under the growing pressure from online booksellers and kept it going even when Tim Waterstone opened a large shop across the street.

Christina Foyle was related to Charles Henry Foyle, inventor of the "folding carton" and founder of Boxfoldia. Screenwriter Anthony Horowitz has said that Miss Foyle was the namesake for the title character, Christopher Foyle, in the ITV series Foyle's War.