Literary Paris: A Guide

Make a literary pilgrimage through Paris by following in the footsteps of thirty writers who made the city their home. Starting with Moliere in the 17th century and ending with James Baldwin in the 20th, Literary Paris profiles thirty writers and describes more than one hundred sites associated with them—from cafes, salons, homes, and haunts, to locations in the city described in their writing.

Writers profiled: Molière • Voltaire • The Marquis de Sade • Honore de Balzac • Alexandre Dumas • Victor Hugo • George Sand • Charles Baudelaire • Gustave Flaubert • Jules Verne • Mark Twain • Émile Zola • Arthur Rimbaud • Paul Verlaine • Oscar Wilde • Marcel Proust • Colette • Gertrude Stein • Guillaume Apollinaire • Henry Miller • Janet Flanner • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Ernest Hemingway • George Orwell • Georges Simenon • Simone de Beauvoir • Jean-Paul Sartre • Richard Wright • Albert Camus • James Baldwin

Some of the sites included in Literary Paris:

Hôtel de Pimodan/Lauzun

17, quai d'Anjou (4th arr.)Meeting place of the Club des Haschichins, whose members included Balzac, Dumas, Delacroix, and Baudelaire. Under a doctor's guidance, the men were each given a saucer in which a thumb-sized portion of greenish jam—hashish—had been placed. The doctor told them, "This will be deducted from your share in Paradise."

The Salon of Nathalie Barney

20, rue Jacob (6th arr.)

Nathalie, said Colette, was a beautiful, rich American with "sea-blue eyes" who seduced many a Parisian society woman. She held parties in her home here, where guests passed through a Greek temple at the bottom of her garden, on whose Doric columns she had engraved "à l'amitié." Among her guests were Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Sherwood Anderson, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Guillaume Apollinaire.

About the Author

Jessica Powell has worked as a journalist, translator, and editor in Europe and Japan. She is currently based in London.