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Real Florida

A novel approach

The world ends at the state line for a small St. Petersburg bookstore that sells only titles with a link to Florida.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published September 23, 2005

[Times photos: Lara Cerri]

T. Allan Smith and his wife, Niki, own MicklerSmith Florida BookTraders, a specialty bookstore tucked between a coin laundry and beauty parlor in the Old Northeast neighborhood of St. Petersburg.

	F.R. Goulding's Marooner's Island, which takes place in the Tampa Bay area, is one of the rare volumes found at MicklerSmith. It was published in 1866.

ST. PETERSBURG - T. Allan Smith, who sells books for a living, often develops icy feet when a customer actually wants to buy one of his precious books.

"Can I have visitation rights?" he says, sounding serious.

He sells books only about Florida at his new store, MicklerSmith, at 718 Second St. N, among the sleepy bungalows of the Old Northeast. Many of the 17,000 volumes on his shelves are commonly found at chain bookstores, though most are not. And every once in a while, he gets his hands on a book so rare he is loathe to let it out of his sight.

Wine of the Dreamers, for example, is such a property. Published in 1951, the novel looks bookstore new. The still-shiny dust jacket contains a photograph of a young, curly-haired author who looks suspiciously like John D. MacDonald. It is MacDonald, in fact, and Wine of the Dreamers was the first of his many written works.

MacDonald acolytes all know about his famous, Florida-based Travis McGee mysteries. But almost nobody has ever heard of Wine of the Dreamers. That's because the science fiction story fell quickly out of print and then was republished, with a garish cover, as Planet of the Dreamers.

Do not ask T. Allan Smith where he found Wine of the Dreamers. Might as well ask Long John Silver the compass coordinates for Treasure Island. "Oh, I couldn't tell you where," Smith says, clutching his prize.

But will he sell it?

"I guess the proper answer is "yes,' " he says grudgingly.

For how much?

Two hundred dollars? Keep going. Three hundred dollars? Keep going.

"Four hundred and fifty," he says. "Wait a minute. That might not be enough."

An unlikely bookseller, T. Allan Smith. Of course, the bookstore is just as unorthodox.

There is no such thing as a bad bookstore, especially if you are looking for a trendy diet book, a titillating expose of a slutty celebrity, or a slash and gash novel about a serial killer. But at some modern bookstores, a request for something by Melville or Twain will be met by a blank look. "What did Melville Twain write?" the bored salesclerk might ask. Visit the "Florida" section of many modern bookstores and you have at most a 50-50 chance of finding The Yearling.

MicklerSmith, which opened in June, should officially be considered an endangered species in the 21st century. Like other family-owned businesses, it must compete with brand name corporations that spend millions on advertising and offer deep discounts. Meanwhile, there is that unusual inventory: shelves that feature literary works that describe life between Key West and Pensacola.

"I guess it makes no sense to open a business like this," Smith admits. "It's ludicrous when I think about it."

The man couldn't help himself.

You know how Florida natives of a certain age wax nostalgic about bare feet, cane pole fishing and stealing oranges from the neighbor's grove? Born in 1947, the year Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote Everglades: River of Grass, Smith was raised in rural Central Florida and can spin Huck Finn tales with the best of them. Yet many of his most golden memories involve reading. His mother, a school librarian, pointed him to special books about his native state that left indelible marks.

Under the covers at night, with a flashlight braced under his chin like a fiddle, he empathized with Jody Baxter's doomed love for the fawn Flag in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling. He read The Strawberry Girl, written by Lois Lenski in 1945, about young Birdie Boyer and her family's harrowing efforts growing berries near Plant City. He also tore through the pages of Lion's Paw, Robb White's 1937 tale about the unhappy kids who escape from an orphanage, hop aboard a sailboat and survive encounters with tropical storms and ravenous alligators in southwest Florida.

Reading such books inspired Smith to become a storyteller himself.

A University of South Florida graduate, he wrote - and later edited - newspaper stories for the Plant City Courier, Brandon News, Lakeland Ledger, Miami News, Leesburg Commercial, Naples Star, Island Reporter and Orlando Sentinel.

Close to the Orlando office was that dusty institution, Mickler's Antiquarian Books. Thomas Mickler and his wife, Georgine, who opened their store in 1963, concentrated on out-of-print Floridiana. They tracked down maps, postcards, brochures, diaries, letters, church sermons and books and then put them up for sale.

"It was a fantastic place," Smith says. "You'd go into one room and explore and turn the corner - and there was a whole other room to explore. It was a treasure."

Tom Mickler passed away in 1997. Georgine died the next year. Much of their inventory was donated to special collections at universities. Smith bought the remainder. "It was the only way I could cure my disease of wanting Florida books: start my own store."

Now he runs what arguably might be the best stocked store of its kind in the state. His inventory includes stuff hot off the press and material long out of print - like that John D. MacDonald first edition and a 1952 Life magazine that included the debut of a Hemingway story, The Old Man and the Sea. When he wrote the novella, Hemingway was living in Cuba, though Smith and other old-timey Floridians still like to think of Papa as a Key West guy.

MicklerSmith is open every day but Sunday. Its neighbors are a beauty parlor and a coin laundry. The world, fair to say, has yet to discover the little store so far off the beaten path. Yet customers are at least trickling in. The other day a middle-aged collector of rare Floridiana paid $63 for Florida for Tourists, Invalids and Settlers, George M. Barbour's eccentric 1881 guide to the state.

"Florida!" Barbour wrote. "What kind of a place is it? How does it look? What does it produce? What are the conditions?"

Still good questions. In fact, they could be asked about MicklerSmith. Its one room is brightly lit and impossibly crammed with shelves of books. Two customers back to back in the same aisle had better be close friends.

Smith has dedicated one area of the store to perhaps his favorite Florida author, Zora Neale Hurston. Want to know a Smith fantasy? It's finding a first edition copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God for about 50 cents. He could turn around and sell it for $12,000. Of course, he would never sell it. But he does have it in paperback for $14.

His business acumen would also be tested should he ever encounter the Holy Grail of books for Florida collectors, a first-edition copy of Travels, an account of William Bartram's 16th century adventures in the South, including Florida. Difficult to find, it was published in 1791. But if you happen to find it cheaply at the neighborhood thrift store, buy it. You might be able to sell it for $25,000.

"Here's an interesting one," Smith says, muttering to himself among the stacks. He flips through the pages of Swing It High Sweet Saxophones, a book of poetry written by a Tampa bandleader, George Kayton, in 1944. Inside the cover is Kayton's sweet inscription to a friend. Stuck among the pages are yellowed newspaper clippings about Kayton. "I wouldn't dream of taking them out," Smith says.

Hanging on a shelf behind him is an old movie poster - Smith hopes to sell posters too - of Naked in the Sun "filmed in flaming Eastman Color, filmed in the wilds of Florida jungles. Biting bullwhip fury, wife taken by slave traders . . . starring James Craig and Lita Milan, from the sensuous pen of Frank G. Slaughter."

Bullwhips! Slave traders! Women spilling out of their small dresses! Sensuous pens!

Florida, land of dreams.

"I hope this becomes more than a nonprofit business," Smith says. "I really think there is an audience for these kinds of books. Old Floridians want to hang onto old Florida and new Floridians are looking for a sense of place."

A car pulls up outside. A couple ambles toward the store.

"Oh, it's just my wife's parents," Smith says. "But both of them are starting to enjoy reading Florida books."

- Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at 727 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com

For further information: MicklerSmith Florida BookTraders, 718 Second St. N, St. Petersburg. For store hours, call (727) 894-1565.

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 09:32:02]