Imagined Things was founded by our owner Georgia in 2017. She left her NHS career as a radiographer to follow her love of imagined things and the books that contain them. From small beginnings tucked away inside Harrogate’s last Victorian Arcade, the shop’s fortunes were transformed by a viral Tweet (before Twitter turned into X) that was seen by over a million people, plunged Georgia into appearing on live radio and Radio 4, and meant so many people discovered the bookshop! The shop stayed in that location for 5 years, the business grew, we got to know many lovely regular customers, hosted lots of author events and worked with schools.
It was quite the career change from X-Raying and CT Scanning the people of Harrogate, to selling them books! The early days of the bookshop were a huge, but exciting, learning curve filled with possibility, hope and a whole lot of books. Georgia worked six days a week in the beginning, delighted in not having to do night shifts and being surrounded by books and lovely folk who loved them too. It was such a special time. Though after nearly five years we realised there wasn’t much more growing we could do from our first location.
