Paternoster Row is the geographic home of England's publishing scene, with book stores and publishers lining the street. In Medieval England, monks would recite the Lord's Prayer while processing down the road, the Latin "Pater Noster" being exclaimed as the clergy marched. Over time, the street became well known for its merchants and street salesmen, peddling religious, educational, or even sometimes explicit books and literature to the British public to the point where "Paternoster Row" was entirely synonymous with the British publishing industry, almost how "Wall Street" today means the rich banks and bankers who run the American financial system.

"Soon the floor was strewn with a heap of papers, chiefly manuscripts, whose dusty and battered air would have suggested to an experienced eye frequent and fruitless visits to the region of Paternoster Row" (Levy, Ch. 2).