The summer afternoon was hot, but no one in the queue seemed bothered. Dozens were patiently waiting to enter Shakespeare and Company, a storied bookshop perched on the left bank of the Seine opposite Notre Dame cathedral. “That’s where Shakespeare wrote for a while,” a passerby informed her friends. No one corrected her—discretion being the better part of valour and all.
“The myth-telling is fascinating,” says Sylvia Whitman, who runs the English-language bookshop with her partner. “It adds to the house of stories that a bookshop can be.” She has heard it all: that Shakespeare, who never left England, resided here, or that Sylvia Plath, another poet, founded it.
In fact, Shakespeare and Company was launched by Ms Whitman’s father, George, 75 years ago this month (first under the name Le Mistral). It is probably the most famous bookshop in the world, enjoying a halo from its proximity to some of literature’s patron saints. Around 2,000-3,000 people visit each day—nearly 1m a year—spurred by the shop’s hundreds of thousands of social-media followers. It claims more impressive screen credits than many actors, having appeared in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”, Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunset” and a French film, “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life”. A hit TV series, “Emily in Paris”, asked to feature it, but Ms Whitman declined. The bookshop already contends with so many selfie-snappers.
[0–>Top: Sylvia Whitman, daughter of the founder, now runs the store. She was named after Sylvia Beach, who founded the original Shakespeare and Company; Bottom: The original shop’s history, written by its founder[-1–>
How does a books-and-mortar shop withstand three-quarters of a century and still get people to queue to enter? One answer is a clever approach to social media. Photos and videos are prohibited inside. This enhances the shop’s mystique among those who while away hours on Instagram and TikTok. “You can’t see what it looks like online, so that’s kind of cool,” says Hannah, a literature student from England who had come to take in “the older, nostalgic vibe” for herself.
This strategy differs from that of other pilgrimage sites for bibliophiles, such as El Ateneo Grand Splendid, housed in a grand former theatre in Buenos Aires, and Livraria Lello in Porto, which looks like a cross between a cathedral and a robber baron’s mansion. (The latter claims to be the “most beautiful bookshop” in the world, and you have to buy a ticket to go in.) But it fits with a broader trend of people’s curiosity being piqued by some restaurants, stores and concerts starting to ban smartphones. No-photo policies offer a feeling of authenticity and unique experience.
Ms Whitman also understands that buyers are not only seeking an entertaining tale, but a story about how and where they bought that book. Customers are offered a stamp of the Shakespeare and Company logo on the inside cover to certify their copy’s origin. The shop stocks loads of luxurious hardbacks, which have the look of yesteryear. (Top sellers include classics such as Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince”.) Far from killing print, e-books have made some consumers keener to splurge on special editions.
[0–>Customers are asked whether they want their book to be stamped[-1–>
But probably the biggest explanation for the shop’s success is how it has embraced the myths surrounding it. Shakespeare and Company is like a Russian doll, containing several brands inside. First, its name evokes the most famous writer in the English language. Second, there is the shop that preceded it, which had the same name. That one was founded by Sylvia Beach, an American, in 1919. She was courageous enough to publish James Joyce’s “Ulysses” when everyone thought it was obscene, and likeable enough to count superstars, including Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Eliot, as friends. Beach’s bookstore closed during the second world war, and legend has it that she later gave Whitman permission to adopt her shop’s name.
Though Whitman was not always a reliable narrator. He was, said Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a poet and friend, “the most eccentric person I’ve ever met in my life”. (That is saying quite a lot, considering Ferlinghetti marched to the beat of the Beatniks.) Whitman claimed he was the grandson of Walt Whitman—his father was a university professor named Walter, unrelated to the famous poet. He also named his daughter Sylvia, which linked his life and shop to Beach’s. This still spawns confusion. When Mr Allen wrote a note to the team at Shakespeare and Company after filming there, he addressed it to Sylvia Beach, who had died in 1962.
[0–>Upstairs browsers can find used books, the shop’s original focus[-1–>
[0–>The till, without a wait[-1–>
[0–>Finding a book to love in the City of Love[-1–>
[0–>The noticeboard where customers and visiting writers leave behind messages[-1–>
[0–>Customers can browse quietly, often lingering for a while[-1–>
[0–>Ticking off all the Paris hotspots[-1–>
Whitman described his store as a “socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore”. More than 30,000 people have stayed there and in the flats above—many of them writers—in exchange for working, reading and writing a one-page autobiography. The shop is decidedly more commercial these days, with a coffee shop next door. Higher-margin merchandise, including tote bags and notebooks, accounts for around 30% of total sales, says Ms Whitman. It also hosts writers’ talks and an annual celebration of “Ulysses”, which are partly supported by the shop’s foundation.
How replicable is its formula? Many other bookstores peddle merchandise and host author events. Having signed copies by authors can triple book sales, notes Andrew Pettegree, who has written a forthcoming history of bookshops.
Yet Shakespeare and Company’s is an impossible playbook to copy. Its history and location in central Paris are unbeatable. “Very few booksellers own their real estate” as Shakespeare and Company does, notes James Daunt, the boss of Barnes & Noble, a chain. He points out that a bookshop that also happened to be called Shakespeare & Co (no relation) closed last year in New York, citing rising rents among other challenges.
[0–>The shop has an eclectic, whimsical interior[-1–>
Yet “good” bookshops are thriving, says Mr Daunt. In America there has been a proliferation of independent ones, with about 400 launching physical stores last year, 62% more than a year earlier. They have become community gathering spaces. More owners understand, as Whitman did, that it is “not only about selling books. It’s about being a cultural market,” says Ewelina Oksiuta, director of the European and International Booksellers Federation, a trade group. “People in the age of smartphones and digitalisation are looking for presence and human touch.”
In its own way, Shakespeare and Company also contends with the boon and challenge of tourism. “We’ve always been trying to get a balance between being a popular visit site for people passing through the city and yet trying to keep our connections more local,” says Ms Whitman. Some expats feel the shop caters more to passersby than Parisians. An access card, a flash of which lets you skip the line, is doled out to only the most loyal and prominent patrons, who are sure to be able to tell their Sylvias apart and distinguish between the shop’s chapters.■
Photographs: Julien Lienard
[0–>Those who have stayed and worked at the shop have used the typewriter to write a one-page autobiography[-1–>
コロラド対ジョージア工科大学
