George Whitman, long-time proprietor of Shakespeare and Company, the legendary Parisian bookstore started by Sylvia Beach (albeit in a different location) - died yesterday aged 98 in his apartment above the bookshop…

“Amid the maze of tiny rooms with books stacked to the ceilings, cubbyholes with hotplates, moth-eaten rugs, cats, sagging sofas and gilded mirrors, there were beds where impecunious “young writers” could, in return for work, stay the night and be nibbled by, reputedly, the most voracious bedbugs in Paris.

More established writers could stay upstairs in the Writers’ Room, where the beds were more comfortable. Over more than 50 years, Whitman reckoned he had accommodated more than 50,000 guests, ranging from struggling writers such as Alan Sillitoe, to penniless couples and drifters.” — The Telegraph obit. (More)

(Source: agooddaytodie, via i12bent)