The first and leading bookstore and publisher in Bombay, the New Book Co. Pvt. Ltd. in the Kitab Mahal, was owned by the Taraporevala family. D.B. Taraporevala & Sons, the “treasure house of books” (The Times of India, 19 November 1936, 3), was the most famous book wholesalers in Bombay. It was a hub not only for international literature, foreign periodicals and newspapers, illustrated magazines and pictures, postcards and art publications, but also for artists themselves. D.B. Taraporevala & Sons even offered temporary exhibition space when Bombay lacked galleries. The company was founded as a bookseller, newsagent and stationery dealer at 190 Hornby Road in 1864. In 1936 they ran the bookstore at 210 Hornby Road, with a branch in the Taj Mahal Hotel at Apollo Bunder to serve an elite Indian and high-class foreign clientele. Among many other titles, the New Book Co. published Ernst N. Schaeffer's guidebook to the city: Pictorial Bombay.