B. Dalton Buys Scribner Name, Costa Mesa Store

The venerable Scribner Book Store name and the Scribner Book Store in Costa Mesa’s Crystal Court have been sold to the giant discount chain B. Dalton Bookseller Inc., officials said Thursday.

B. Dalton, which also owns the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, purchased the name and store from MacMillan Publishing Co. and the specialty Rizzoli International book chain for an undisclosed price. MacMillan will continue to publish books under the Scribner name.

After the sale is completed, only the Costa Mesa store will carry the Scribner name, a fixture on the literary scene for 140 years. A second Scribner store in Virginia is not part of the sale and will take the Rizzoli name.

But B. Dalton said it plans to quickly build a new chain of Scribner bookstores that maintain the intellectual flavor and vast selection of classic literature that characterize the Costa Mesa store. The first new outlets are scheduled to open this fall.

“Just as we have done with B. Dalton and Barnes & Noble before it, we are committed to add both insight and value to the heritage of Scribner’s,” B. Dalton President Leonard Riggio said in a prepared statement.

Charles Scribner III, a descendant of founder Charles Scribner and a MacMillan executive, said in a statement: “I am particularly pleased that the new owners and operators of the Scribner’s Book Stores appreciate the longstanding Scribner commitment to quality and will uphold it.”

The Costa Mesa store, which opened in late 1987 in the Crystal Court annex to South Coast Plaza, carries 20,000 titles, several times the number carried by most of the 750 B. Dalton stores. The selection includes displays of classic novels by Hemingway and Fitzgerald that carry the Charles Scribner’s & Sons publishing imprint.

“We’re known for our literature and our children’s books. Some people say we have the best children’s selection in the county,” said store manager Karen Parti, who learned the news of the sale from a reporter.

Scribner’s flagship store, for years located on 5th Avenue in New York, closed earlier this year because the high-rent district had become too expensive.

B. Dalton said it is currently negotiating with the owner of the landmark building to reopen the store, but it is not optimistic that a deal will be made.