AH Wheeler & Co Ltd, is the largest bookstore chain in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The chain was founded by Emile Moreau

Émile Moreau

Émile Moreau was a French playwright and screenwriter. In co-operation with Victorien Sardou, he wrote the plays Madame Sans-Gêne and Cleopatre . He also wrote the play Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, and the script for its film adaptation, and was one of the co-founders of the Indian...

, a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 author, and TK Banerjee, an Indian

Indian people

Indian people or Indisians constitute the Asian nation and pan-ethnic group native to India, which forms the south of Asia, containing 17.31% of the world's population. The Indian nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the rich and complex history of India...

 businessman in Allahabad

Allahabad

Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...

. AH Wheeler borrowed its name from the then-successful London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 bookstore, Arthur Henry Wheeler's. AH Wheeler opened its first outlet at Allahabad Railway Station in 1877. It later spread to have its book stalls in many small and big railway stations pan India. AH Wheeler was the one that published Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

in 1888. In 1950, T.K. Banerjee took over the company. Since then his family, which is now in its 4th generation, has been running the company. After 134 years of its completion, AH Wheeler has a chain of 378 bookstalls at 258 railway stations in the country.