Now a major ITV drama series, Mr Selfridge is a tale of Edwardian excess and the rise and fall of maverick retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge. In 1909 London's first dedicated department store opened in a huge blaze of publicity. Zola called Selfridges a 'great cathedral of shopping', and its high priest was Harry Gordon Selfridge, father of modern retailing, philanderer, gambler, dandy and showman. Selfridge's talents were for shopping and seduction: and as his shop grew in success, so did his list of mansions, yachts, racehorses - and conquests. He lived through the turmoil of the First World War and the glittering excesses of the 1920s before losing millions at French gaming tables and being ousted from his store in 1939.
To this irrepressible man, 'the store was a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o'clock': Mr Selfridge reveals the captivating story of what happened before the curtain fell.