The Book Trade Charity said the online titan made the donation on a “low-key” basis, but yesterday revealed that Amazon was the mystery donor.

It came after the charity started a fundraising drive to help booksellers facing financial difficulties after being forced to close their doors amid lockdown.

The charity’s chief executive David Hicks told the BBC: “Amazon came to us and said they would like to put some money into our fund, particularly to help at this time, and that they would prefer it to be low key.”