# Frances Steloff
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{{Short description|American bookstore owner (1887–1989)}}
[[File:Frances Steloff 1978 ©Lynn Gilbert.jpg|thumb|Frances Steloff photographed by [Lynn Gilbert](/source/Lynn_Gilbert) (1978)]]
'''Ida Frances Stelov''' (December 31, 1887 – April 15, 1989), better known as '''Fanny Steloff''', was the founder of the [Gotham Book Mart](/source/Gotham_Book_Mart) in [New York City](/source/New_York_City), a center for ''avant-garde'' literature and literati from 1920 until it closed in 2007.[{{Cite book|title=Pseudonyms|author=Joseph F. Clarke|publisher=BCA|date=1977|page=154}}]
Ida Frances Stelov was born to a poor family in [Saratoga Springs, New York](/source/Saratoga_Springs%2C_New_York) on December 31, 1887. Her mother died when she was young, and at 12 she was taken in by a couple who offered her a home. She dropped out of school in the seventh grade. At the age of 19, she moved to New York where she worked at Loeser's, a department store. She then worked in several bookstores, and in 1920 founded the Gotham Book Mart.[{{cite news|last1=Mitgang|first1=Herbert|title=Frances Steloff Is Dead at 101; Founded the Gotham Book Mart|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/16/obituaries/frances-steloff-is-dead-at-101-founded-the-gotham-book-mart.html?pagewanted=all|work=The New York Times|date=April 16, 1989}}]
She challenged government censorship, ordering smuggled copies of [Henry Miller](/source/Henry_Miller)'s ''[Tropic of Cancer](/source/Tropic_of_Cancer_(novel))'' in the 1930s and purchasing shipments of [D. H. Lawrence](/source/D._H._Lawrence)'s banned book ''[Lady Chatterley's Lover](/source/Lady_Chatterley's_Lover)'' in the late 1920s.[{{Cite book|title=Wise Men Fish Here: The Story of Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart|author=W. G. Rogers|publisher=Harcourt Brace & World|date=1965|page=102}}]
According to its writer [Robbie Robertson](/source/Robbie_Robertson), the line "Take a load off, Fanny" in his well known song "[The Weight](/source/The_Weight)" was inspired by Steloff, whose bookstore he visited.[{{cite web |last1=Rogovoy |first1=Seth |title=One of the Greatest Rock and Roll Songs of All Time was Inspired by a Jewish Bookseller |url=https://forward.com/culture/music/355808/one-of-the-greatest-rock-and-roll-songs-of-all-time-was-inspired-by-a/ |website=Forward: Jewish. Independent. Nonprofit. |access-date=1 Sep 2022 |ref=Rogovoy}}]
Steloff married David Moss in 1923. They divorced in 1930.