Simon Beattie

Simon Beattie FSA[1] (born 5 February 1975 in Aylesbury) is a British antiquarian bookseller, literary translator and music composer.

[citation needed] Beattie was educated at Aylesbury Grammar School and the University of Exeter, where he took a double first in German and Russian (1997).

Beattie was a 2012 winner in the Smarta 100 Awards for 'the most resourceful, original, exciting and disruptive small businesses in the UK'.

It was Beattie who set in motion the worldwide strike by over 450 booksellers against AbeBooks' decision to withdraw from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, and South Korea in November 2018.

A more recent piece, The Angel and the Unicorn, setting a poem by Rilke (which Beattie himself translated) on the Annunciation, was premiered by the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge in 2020.

Cover of Beattie’s Short List 2, published October 2010