There is a delightful little bookstore with lots of history and charm sitting across the Seine from Notre-Dame that I always visit when in
Paris. And every person I’ve introduced to the place has been equally charmed.
The original store with the famous American proprietor, Sylvia Beach, began in 1919 on the Left Bank (the second location on 12
rue de l’Odeon was the most famous) where it flourished with many American and French readers.
Madame Beach loved
Paris and since she couldn’t afford to open a shop in NYC, she opened her English-language bookstore and lending l
ibrary here. Its
reputation was as a center for Anglo/American literary culture where Sylvia offered encouragement and hospitality to many aspiring writers like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway—authors often referred to as the “lost generation.” Along with her book store, which provided a hangout for the crowd of writers, Sylvia Beach is probably best known for publishing James Joyce’s controversial novel, “Ulysses” when he couldn’t get an edition published in an English-speaking country. It was subsequently banned, of course, in the US and the United Kingdom.
Beach would later be strapped financially when Joyce signed on with another publisher and the Great Depression hit but she was kept in business with financial help from her wealthy friends. Eventually a group of writers organized a “Shakespeare and Friends” club; each paid 200 francs a year to attend readings which translated into lucrative attention from the press. Shortly after the fall of
Paris, Beach was forced to close the shop and was actually interned for six months during WWII. But she kept her books hidden in a vacant upstairs apartment during that time and in 1944, Hemmingway symbolically liberated the shop—although Sylvia’s "Shakespeare and Company" never re-opened.
In the early 1950s, George Whitman founded a new bookstore at the current address (37
rue de la Bucherie) and obtained
Madame Beach’s permission to use the name. It remains an independent business—still specializing in English-language literature as a bookstore, lending library, venue for readings, plus a dormitory for travelers who earn their keep by helping out in
the shop. Not easy to find among all the
stacks and stacks of books, there are supposedly 13 beds upstairs; and George says that more than 50,000 people have slept there at one time or other. All he asks is that you make your bed in the morning, help in the shop, and read a book a day.According to the website (
http://shakespeareco.org/), George is in his 90s but “still sits as a figurehead above his store.” His daughter, a beautiful young lady, Sylvia Beach Whitman, now runs the shop. (We tried to get her in so many pictures, I swear she thought we were stalking her! Suz finally got this shot of her--wearing a skirt with tights--carrying books into the shop.)
There is a delightful little bookstore with lots of history and charm sitting across the Seine from Notre-Dame that I always visit when in Paris. And every person I’ve introduced to the place has been equally charmed. 
reputation was as a center for Anglo/American literary culture where Sylvia offered encouragement and hospitality to many aspiring writers like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway—authors often referred to as the “lost generation.” Along with her book store, which provided a hangout for the crowd of writers, Sylvia Beach is probably best known for publishing James Joyce’s controversial novel, “Ulysses” when he couldn’t get an edition published in an English-speaking country. It was subsequently banned, of course, in the US and the United Kingdom. 
