Shakespeare and Company, Paris

About Shakespeare and Company

Shakespeare and Company is an English-language bookshop at 37 Rue de la Bûcherie in the 5th arrondissement, steps from the Seine and Place Saint-Michel, facing Notre-Dame. The American George Whitman opened it in 1951 as 'Le Mistral', on the site of a 16th-century monastery.

It took its present name in 1964, in tribute to Sylvia Beach's famous shop of 1919, where Hemingway, Joyce and Fitzgerald gathered in the 1920s and 1930s. Whitman modelled his store on hers, and Beach herself passed the name on to him. Today the shop is run by Whitman's daughter Sylvia, named after Sylvia Beach.

What to see

• The book rooms — narrow aisles, shelves to the ceiling.
• The upstairs reading library — free, with a piano.
• Beds among the books — for young writers.
• The motto above the door — on welcoming strangers.
• The shop's café — with a view of Notre-Dame.
• Square René-Viviani — next door, with one of the oldest trees in Paris.

Inside the shop

Inside is a maze of cramped rooms with books from floor to ceiling, in stacks and in every corner. It sells new and second-hand books in English, as well as antiquarian editions. A creaky wooden staircase leads up to the free reading library: sit in an armchair, take a book off the shelf and read as long as you like, while someone may be playing the old piano.

Above the entrance to the library is the shop's motto: 'Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise'. Whitman called his shop 'a socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore', and Henry Miller called it 'a wonderland of books'.

Tumbleweeds: writers among the shelves

The shop's quirk is its beds, tucked between bookshelves. Young writers and artists can sleep here for free in exchange for helping in the shop, promising to read a book a day and writing a one-page autobiography for the archive. Whitman called these guests 'Tumbleweeds', who 'blow in and out on the winds of chance'.

Over the years more than 30,000 people have slept among the shelves. Literary evenings, writing workshops and Sunday tea parties still take place, and the shop even has its own literary prize.

Famous visitors

Whitman's shop quickly became the hub of English-language literary life in Paris. Beat poets came, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, along with James Baldwin, Anaïs Nin, Julio Cortázar, Richard Wright and Lawrence Durrell. The journal Merlin, published from the shop, was the first to print Samuel Beckett in English.

The shop has starred on screen too, in Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, Julie & Julia and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Many people come here because of these films.

The café and what's nearby

In 2015 the Shakespeare and Company café opened next door, with mostly vegetarian food, coffee, pastries and a view of Notre-Dame across the Seine. Whitman had dreamed of a literary café here since 1969.

Nearby is little Square René-Viviani, home to one of the oldest trees in Paris, and the ancient church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. From here it's easy to walk into the Latin Quarter with Rue de la Huchette and Rue Saint-Séverin, or across the bridge to the Île de la Cité.

Tips for your visit

The shop pairs naturally with Notre-Dame and a walk through the Latin Quarter, as it sits right between them. Twenty to forty minutes is enough unless you linger in the reading library.

For a keepsake, choose a book about Paris or a classic written here, and ask for the shop's stamp. New book prices are standard for English editions.

Watch the events programme on the shop's website: readings with well-known writers are sometimes free with registration.

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How to do it right

• Early to skip the queue.
• Library upstairs.
• Get the stamp.
• Notre-Dame opposite.

Questions