It is a lineage of language at the fingertips. The Brattle Book Shop, one of the oldest and largest antiquarian book stores in the country, has three floors packed with used, rare, and out of prints books. The gray metal bookcases, sometimes layered two-deep against the walls, contain 250,000 books. But the Brattle is a narrative all by itself. Walking through the door is like cracking open the cover of an old volume that’s been tucked away. Underneath the store’s thin film of dust is its own story.

Despite the insistence of people who call the store on the phone, there is no Mr. Brattle. And despite the confusion of area residents, the shop is not located on Brattle Street in Cambridge. Founded in 1825, in the Cornhill section of Boston, the shop was originally located on a Brattle Street, but that street was long ago civil-engineered out of existence when the city’s government center was built. In any case, the shop has been happily located on West Street, a small side street a block off the Commons, for the past thirty-five years.

That’s when George Gloss took over what was then a sinking ship. But with a combination of generosity and publicity stunts, George began to bail out the Brattle. He held free days that became famous. People lined up outside the store with shopping bags and then filed in to take away as much as their bundles would allow. He also gave away copies of collectible books to newly-married couples as wedding presents. He believed in the power of literature, in community, and in the benefits of getting his name in the paper. The Brattle became a store people went back to again and again.

Today people still come into the store looking for George, although he passed away in 1985. Some regulars who have been frequenting the store for decades will tell stories about George climbing across stacks of haphazardly piled books, knowing exactly where everything was in the clutter. Others like to point the shop’s current owner, George’s son Ken, and exclaim, “I knew him, when he was just a boy.” Ken, now the father of two teenagers himself, has as the slender and sturdy build of someone who has been carrying books most of his life. He still has a boyish charm revealed in a wide smile when he tells about how many times his father fired him – once long enough for Ken go to out and get a degree in chemistry – but eventually, he always came back. He even helped his father rebuild the business for a second time – after a fire destroyed their shop and every book in it in 1980. Ken and George set a table up on the sidewalk and sold donated books, the ashes of the shop still smoldering behind them. Eventually they were able to buy the building a few doors down and the Brattle was up and running again.

The business is still a family endeavor. Ken’s mother, Dorritt, a gentle white-haired woman, pencils the shop’s finances in her ledger each morning and can often be heard working on her typewriter in the upstairs office. Ken’s wife, Joyce, also works in the shop managing another version of the finances on the computer, maintaining the shop’s Web site, and otherwise helping to coax the Brattle into the 21st century. Often dressed in leopard print stretch pants and accompanied by a doting St. Bernard, Joyce is also in charge of sarcasm.

Ken and Joyce’s teenage daughters fill in at the shop when they need money to buy gifts or have run up too high a cell phone bill; and their niece also works part-time while finishing college. The rest of the staff is not related by blood to the couple but are nonetheless treated like family. Former Brattle employees sometimes come back to help out when the store needs some extra hands and are welcomed like relatives returning home for the holidays.