The Bookseller is a minor character in Disney's 1991 animated feature film, Beauty and the Beast. He is the owner of a small bookshop/library in the village that Belle lived in. He is one of the few villagers who is genuinely friendly to Belle.
Appearances[]
Beauty and the Beast[]
During the film's opening musical number, Belle enters his workplace with the intention of returning a book that she had previously borrowed, she questions if there is anything new, to which the Book Seller denies, after choosing a book that she had already read twice, the Book Seller kindly gives the book to Belle as a gift and watches as Belle departs.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)[]
In the live-action remake, the Bookseller is changed to Père Robert (French for "Father Robert"), the village chaplain.
He is first seen when Belle arrives at his chapel, to return a book that she had borrowed from him. Belle asks him if he has any new books, which he hasn't, but assures Belle that she could borrow one of his old ones. A few hours later, Père Robert helps Belle pick up her laundry, which some of the villagers have thrown on the street on the orders of the headmaster after discovering Belle teaching a young girl to read.
He later appears at the tavern, when Gaston arrives and Maurice accuses Gaston of having tried to kill him. When Gaston throws Maurice into the back of Monsieur D'Arque's carriage, Pére Robert insists that Maurice is sick and needs to go to a hospital, not an asylum.
After Belle reveals the existence of the Beast, Père Robert watches in horror as the villagers head off to kill the Beast. However, it is likely he may have had a part in helping Belle and Maurice by setting the horses to the carriage loose to buy them some time as he did not go with the mob (probably believing in Belle's claim that the Beast was not dangerous). Père Robert later attends the ball at the castle, together with the others, after the curse is broken.
Literature[]
As Old as Time (A Twisted Tale)[]
In As Old as Time (A Twisted Tale), a variation on the original film based on the idea that the Enchantress was Belle's mother, the bookseller is named 'Monsieur Levi' and is identified as not only being an old friend of Belle's mother and Belle's own godfather but is also slightly magical himself, although his only 'magic' appears to be an extremely long life as he revealed to be at least over a century old. After various other magic users were 'arrested' by Monsieur D'Arque, Levi was forced to make a deal with D'Arque where he would be left alone so long as he did nothing to help other magical beings, Levi accepting this deal so that he can keep an eye on Belle. At the novel's conclusion, D'Arque has Levi arrested and his bookshop burned down, but he is swiftly rescued when the Beast reveals the truth about D'Arque to the rest of the village.
Gallery[]
Beauty and the Beast[]
Beauty and the Beast 2017[]
