 From 1769, Bell owned a bookshop in the Strand, London, the "British Library".His 109-volume, literature-for-the-masses "The Poets of Great Britain Complete from Chaucer to Churchill", which rivalled Samuel Johnson's "Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets" (1781), was published from 1777 to 1783.Each volume cost just six shillings, much less than what was commonly charged.