Shakespeare and Company

The first Shakespeare and Company was founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919 and became the epicenter of Anglo-American literary life in Paris. It served as a library, bookstore, and home away from home for writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce. Beach's most legendary act was publishing Joyce's controversial masterpiece, Ulysses, in 1922 after it was banned in the United States and United Kingdom, solidifying the shop's place in literary history. The original location closed in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Paris after Beach refused to sell a book to a German officer. In 1951, an American named George Whitman opened a new bookstore called Le Mistral at the current location overlooking the Seine. In 1964, on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth, Whitman renamed the shop Shakespeare and Company with Sylvia Beach's blessing. This second iteration inherited the spirit of the first, becoming a bohemian hub for the Beat Generation writers like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Whitman famously envisioned the shop as a socialist utopia, offering beds to traveling writers known as Tumbleweeds in exchange for work and reading a book a day. Today, the bookstore is run by George’s daughter, Sylvia Whitman, and continues to be a vibrant center for the English-speaking literary community. It hosts regular readings, workshops, and a prestigious biennial literary festival. The shop maintains its enchanting, labyrinthine atmosphere with floor-to-ceiling shelves, hidden nooks, and a resident cat. It remains a pilgrimage site for bibliophiles from around the world, bridging the gap between the historic Lost Generation and the contemporary literary scene.