Shakespeare and Company (bookshop)

Shakespeare and Company (bookshop)
Name	Shakespeare and Company
Caption	Exterior of Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank
Established	1951
Founder	George Whitman
Location	Paris, France
Address	37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005
Type	Independent bookstore, lending library, cultural center
Notable	English-language literature, lending library for writers

Shakespeare and Company (bookshop)

Shakespeare and Company is an English-language independent bookstore and lending library on the Left Bank of Paris associated with expatriate literature, avant-garde publishing, and Beat Generation figures. Founded in the postwar period, the shop has hosted writers, performances, readings, and translations and maintains links with literary figures, universities, and cultural institutions across Europe and North America. Its reputation connects to a network of authors, poets, playwrights, and publishers from the early twentieth century through contemporary literary scenes.

History

George Whitman opened the shop in 1951, building on a tradition that recalls the earlier enterprise operated by Sylvia Beach and patrons such as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. Whitman's shop became a nexus for postwar expatriates including Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Samuel Beckett, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Over decades the venue linked to movements and events like the Beat Generation, Lost Generation, Surrealism, Dada, and the literary modernism associated with Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. Whitman christened the store as a tribute that evokes connections to William Shakespeare, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce's Ulysses, and small presses such as Grove Press, City Lights Booksellers, and Faber and Faber. The shop weathered shifts in Parisian culture alongside festivals and protests such as the May 1968 events in France and collaborated with cultural organizations including the British Council, Alliance Française, Columbia University, and the University of Oxford on readings and exchanges.

Location and Building

Situated at 37 rue de la Bûcherie in the 5th arrondissement, the shop occupies a narrow house near landmarks like Notre-Dame de Paris, the Île de la Cité, the Seine, and the Latin Quarter. The building sits close to institutions such as the Sorbonne University, the Musée de Cluny, the Panthéon, and the Collège de France, placing it amid libraries and archives including the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the American Library in Paris. Architecturally, the premises show signs of historical Parisian townhouses similar to properties preserved around the Place Saint-Michel and the Rue Mouffetard market district. The neighborhood’s cultural geography connects to cafes and salons frequented by Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Colette, and Jean Cocteau.

Collections and Services

The shop specializes in English-language fiction, poetry, drama, and literary criticism, stocking works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley, Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Rimbaud, and contemporary authors such as Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Its library offers a lending system used by residents and travelers and holds rare pamphlets, chapbooks, small-press editions linked to publishers like New Directions Publishing, Faber and Faber, Penguin Books, HarperCollins, and Random House. Services include public readings, manuscript exchanges, translation workshops, and residency programs paralleling initiatives of MacDowell, Yaddo, and The New Yorker events. The shop also collaborates with periodicals such as Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Poetry Magazine, and small journals associated with little magazines and presses from San Francisco to London.

Literary and Cultural Role

Shakespeare and Company functions as a literary salon and performance venue hosting poets, novelists, playwrights, and critics including Allen Ginsberg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Margaret Atwood, and Harold Pinter. It participates in international book fairs and festivals like the Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hay Festival, and Biennale of Contemporary Art. The shop’s activities intersect with translation networks that involve translators of Marcel Proust, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Italo Calvino, and it supports initiatives around copyright debates exemplified by disputes involving James Joyce's Ulysses and publishers such as Grove Press. Its cultural role parallels institutions including Shakespeare's Globe, The British Library, The Morgan Library & Museum, and New York Public Library in promoting reading culture and literary heritage.

Notable Events and People

The store’s guestbook records visits and readings from figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie, Haruki Murakami, Vladimir Nabokov (via legacy ties), and Jean-Paul Sartre. It has hosted events honoring anniversaries of William Shakespeare and tributes to writers such as James Joyce, Sylvia Beach, Marcel Proust, and Simone de Beauvoir. The shop has connections to publishers and editors from Grove Press, City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, Faber and Faber, and Penguin Classics, as well as to translators and scholars from Princeton University, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and Columbia University. Literary awards and laureates associated with readings include recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award, and the Costa Book Awards.

Visitor Information

The shop is open to the public and attracts tourists, scholars, and writers visiting Parisian sites such as Notre-Dame de Paris, Île de la Cité, and the Latin Quarter. Visitors often combine trips with museums like the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, and the Musée Rodin and with walking tours covering the Seine banks, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and the Panthéon. Events, reading schedules, and residency opportunities are announced in collaboration with cultural partners including the British Council, Alliance Française, and international universities; coordination often mirrors programming seen at institutions like Shakespeare's Globe and the Hay Festival. Accessibility, opening hours, and purchasing options vary by season and during city-wide events such as Paris Fashion Week and national holidays.

Category:Bookshops in Paris Category:English-language bookshops Category:Literary salons