The first building on the site of the current Book House, familiar to every resident of St. Petersburg, was erected back in 1737. Here, where Nevsky Prospekt is now crossed by the Griboyedov Canal, formerly known as the Glukha River, according to the design of engineer Herman van Boles, the so-called mazanchovy arena was built, in which one of the city's theaters is located. The building, the walls of which were wooden, and the foundation was made of stone, served theatergoers twelve years - in 1749 it was destroyed by fire.

After 28 years, a three-story house was built on the site of the theater that burned down, in which Ivan Ivanovich Panfilov, the confessor of Tsarina Catherine II, settled. A little later, the building went to the St. Petersburg officials Borozdin, and closer to the middle of the XIX century, it was owned by an enterprising pharmacist, the inventor of the legendary Imzen Chocolate, allegedly curing any disease — Karl Imsen.

By the end of the 19th century, the former Imsen house, whose actual address is Nevsky Prospect 28, housed several offices of various profiles: music and bookstores, one of the first in Russia photo studio, banking house and the editorial office of the newspaper “Birzhevye Novosti”. At the beginning of the 20th century, this plot of land, located in a prestigious district of St. Petersburg, was purchased by the American company Singer.

The Singer House, which was built here in 1904, had a number of architectural innovations, the most important of which was that its frame had a metal base, which made it possible to build it huge window displays. In addition, the building was deprived of drainpipes — the authors of the project were cunningly hidden right in its walls. An interesting fact: it was the Singer company that was the innovator of such a commercial move as the sale of goods on credit.

After the turning point of 1917, when the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, the representative office of the American company “Singer”, as well as the representative offices of many other Western companies, was forced to close its activities on the territory of the country. In the premises where the offices of the creators of the unique and world-famous sewing machine were once located, the Book House placed its shelves. Since 1922, almost the entire book trade in St. Petersburg has been concentrated in this building. Even during the siege of Leningrad, under the roar of enemy cannonade, the famous bookstore continued to operate, giving people reasonable, kind, eternal things.