Shakespeare+and+Company

Shakespeare and Company by Jonathan Lohman Shakespeare and Company was a lending library and book store in Paris. Sylvia Beach was the original owner of Shakespeare and Company. It was originally opened in 1919 and moved once in 1921 to a larger building. In 1940 Shakespeare and Company closed its doors during the German occupation of France and never reopened. In 1951, George Whitman, opened up a bookstore named “La Minstrel” where it was modeled after Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company and played a huge role in literature as well. In 1958 Sylvia Beach gave Whitman the rights to name his store Shakespeare and Company. In 1964, after Beach died he honored her and renamed his bookstore to Shakespeare and Company. It is this bookstore that still stands today.

 Shakespeare and Company was a special kind of shop. People of great minds liked to go there to discuss the latest events and even sometimes to write down their own thoughts. Sylvia Beach made it possible to buy all kinds of books, even ones that were banned in the United States and Britain even if that meant she had to publish them herself. It was there that literary writers and poets that were part of the Lost Generation came to hang out like Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and even Gertrude Stein. When George Whitman was owner he kept the ideals the same and allowed young writers to live and sleep in the sleeping quarters of the store. The store regularly hosts Sunday tea, poetry meetings and writer’s meetings. It was this store that was in the documentary Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. People come all over the world to see this “famous” bookstore and try to live history. Writers and poets alike go there to “feel” the energy the store gives off and hope to one day be famous.

Shakespeare and Company can be found in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine River, opposite of the Notre-Dame. It is still a functioning bookstore where you can purchase regular books, second-hand books and is a reading library that specializes in English-language literature. George Whitman’s daughter Sylvia now runs the store just as her father did allowing young writers to work and live there. She founded FestivalandCo, which is a literary festival that happens biennially that features writers and poets. During the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the store was a shelter to its customers.