Whitman took the name from a shop once owned by fellow bookseller Sylvia Beach, who founded the original Shakespeare and Company in 1919, at which time Paris was still reeling from the impact of the First World War. In those days, George’s shop was called Le Mistral, but he changed the name to Shakespeare and Company in April 1964 to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. To those who stepped inside his bookstore, he was the “frère lampier”, the monk charged with lighting and extinguishing the lamps. Whitman, who had spent his younger years hiking around North and Central America, had a strange habit of pretending he was the monastery’s only surviving monk. The 17th-century building was once home to a monastery known as La Maison du Mustier, the inhabitants of which were just a Cassock’s toss from the Notre Dame cathedral, which lies on the other side of La Seine. Located on 37 rue de la Bûcherie, the bookstore was founded by an American named George Whitman. In the 1950s, it was a hang-out spot for the beat generation, and today it endures as one of Paris’s most important cultural landmarks. Once the haunt of James Joyce and his contemporaries, the store has a hand in publishing some of the greatest and most adventurous novelists of the 20th century. In fact, they have stumbled upon Shakespeare and Company, a bookshop with the kind of lineage that would make Louis XVI weep. On passing the shops’ jade panelling and vintage signage, many begin to wonder if they’ve taken a wrong turn along the Rue de la Bûcherie and stepped into some forgotten quarter of Paris, somewhere the city of light still holds its honey glow. At your next visit you might meet Gertrude Stein or Valery Larbaud or Claude Cahun.The facade of Paris’ most beloved bookstore is an invitation to step back in time. She notes the title on your lending library card and reminds you to return the book by the end of the week. You bring it to Sylvia, who seems to approve. (You’re relieved that Shakespeare and Company has fantasy novels.) But then you see a thin volume with a colorful cover: Woolf’s Kew Gardens (1919), recently published in a limited edition by Hogarth Press with woodcuts by Vanessa Bell.
You also consider, somewhat guiltily, Andrew Soutar’s Equality Island (1919). You consider Ezra Pound’s collection of essays, Pavannes and Divisions (1918), and Upton Sinclair’s muck-racking The Brass Check (1919). It’s out, but Sylvia suggests checking back later in the week. You ask about Virginia Woolf’s recent novel, Night and Day (1919). You look at recent magazines- The New Republic and The Dial, Poetry and Playboy. She also notes your membership and payment in a logbook.
Sylvia hands you membership card and creates a lending library card to keep track of your borrowing activities.
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