In Memory: Virginia Hobson Hicks

Legendary bookseller Virginia Hobson Hicks, of Townsend, Georgia, died on Tuesday, June 22, on St. Simons Island. She was 87.

Hicks, who was also a long-time teacher, spent virtually all of her life deeply involved with books and bookstores. In 2004, BTW profiled Books on the Bluff in Eulonia, Georgia, then "a command center for the vast network of book-related activities under the dominion of Southern bookselling legend 'Miss Virginia' Calvin Hobson Hicks." She and husband, Harold Hicks, ran the store at the front of their house on Sutherland Bluff.

Virginia Hicks was reared in a family full of booksellers, including a cousin who owned The Haunted Book Shop in Mobile, Alabama, and an aunt who operated The Hill Top Shop in Spring Hill, Georgia. In 1996, Hicks and her husband were honored with the Charles S. Haslam Award for Excellence in Bookselling for their previous store, The Book Shop Inc., in downtown Brunswick, Georgia. The couple's other businesses included The Book Shop Press, Inc., which they founded to publish out-of-print local-interest books.

"Virginia Hobson Hicks was a bookseller's bookseller," said Wanda Jewell, the executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.  "She always had a surprising Southern tale that involved industry insiders (or created them), from giving Pat Conroy his first ever book signing, to growing up across the street from the Ingram family. She came from a long line of Southern booksellers and was raised in The Haunted Bookshop. She, and her bookselling husband, Harold, supported SIBA at every opportunity—always cheerleading our efforts. I miss her. She was charming, enthusiastic, and passionate ...  If only she'd written a book."

Virginia Hicks is survived by her husband, Harold, three sons and three daughters, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the Ida Hilton Library or the College of Coastal Georgia Foundation, as reported in Georgia's Darien News.