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| Hillel Stavis | |
Hillel Stavis, former proprietor of WordsWorth Books in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass., died October 20. He was 78. For nearly 30 years, WordsWorth was a destination for book lovers. At its peak in the 1980s, Wordsworth was one of the highest-grossing bookstores per square foot in the nation.
Stavis was born in Boston. After graduating from Brookline High School, he earned his college degree in political science at McGill University in Montreal. He joined the newly formed Peace Corp following college, teaching science in Kenya as part of the first generation of volunteers. Before returning to the U.S., he spent a year in Paris, studying medicine. By the time Stavis returned to Boston, he spoke both French and Swahili.
Several years of apprenticeship at bookstores in Boston and New York led Stavis to open his own store in Cambridge. In 1975, he found the site he would occupy for the next three decades, at 30 Brattle Street in Harvard Square. During the store's best years, WordsWorth averaged selling 3,000 books per day. Donna T. Friedman, Stavis's wife and the store's long-time principal buyer, estimated that he was responsible for selling more than 20 million books over his career.
Other ventures followed his success. Because of a close relationship with Margret Rey, the creator of Curious George, Stavis and Friedman opened Curious George Goes to WordsWorth, which operated from 1996 to 2011, featuring children's books and toys.
In 1985, Stavis and partner Glen Legere designed WordStock, the inventory control and point of sale system for bookstores that was marketed nationwide. Many bookstores still use the system.
Ultimately, however, the spread of large national chain stores, along with the rise of Amazon, upended the entire industry, and led to WordsWorth's closing in 2004. Curious George closed in 2011.