The Best Literary Hotels in Paris
Writers love Paris and Paris loves writers. The city's beauty and mystique have inspired centuries of authors, both native and expat, and few cities revere the writer's art quite as thoroughly as Paris. What better start to your literary tour of Paris than in your hotel? Here are a few that exalt the writers' spirit and impart it to you.
Hôtel Le Tourville
Why it made the list
No writers lived or worked here, but quotes from Molière, Pascal, Stendhal, and Voltaire—to name a few—grace the walls of this stylish "literary" hotel's every guest room and the hotel's impressive library is stocked with all the French classics.
The Peninsula Paris
Why it made the list
In its former life as Paris's Majestic Hotel, this was the setting for a legendary 1922 dinner party where the 20th century's literary titans, Marcel Proust and James Joyce, met for the first and only time (along with guests Stravinsky, Picasso, and Diaghilev). We'll can only imagine what was said, but Proust did give the tipsy Irishman a lift home in his chauffeured car.
Hôtel des Grands Hommes
Why it made the list
Named for the multitude of great French philosophers, writers, and other worthies entombed in the Panthéon across the way, this elegant small hotel sheltered poets Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault as they wrote their collaborative book, The Magnetic Fields, which helped spark the Surrealist movement in art and literature.
Hôtel Dames du Pantheon
Why it made the list
To redress an imbalance at the Panthéon across the square, resting place of France's "grands hommes," this charming hotel pays hommage to some of the great women of French music and letters: Juliette Greco, George Sand, Marguerite Duras, Edith Piaf.
Best Western Premier Le Swann, Hôtel Littéraire
Why it made the list
Portraits, quotations, and a library stocked with books by and about Marcel Proust immerse visitors in the lyrical world of France's most celebrated 20th-century author. What will you find at your bedside waiting for you and a cup of tea? Why a madeleine, of course.
Hôtel Mistral
Why it made the list
Who would think that this tidy little Montparnasse hotel was the setting for a monumental love affair that would rock the literary world? In the late 1930s Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre lived and worked here—in separate rooms, of course—nourishing their passion for ideas, literature, and each other.
Hotel Intercontinental
Why it made the list
It didn't take long after its opening in 1862 for this majestic hotel to become the toast of the Parisian literary world, attracting the likes of Victor Hugo, Émile Zola (who had the heroine of his book Nana die on the hotel's third floor), Guy de Maupassant, Proust, and Oscar Wilde, all of whom ate, drank, and held court at the hotel's legendary Café de la Paix.
Ritz
Why it made the list
Catnip for artists and writers from the day it opened, the Ritz commemorates its literary guests in the elegant Proust Salon, the setting for a decadent afternoon tea, the cozy wood-panelled Hemingway Bar, where the author announced the end of WWII by "liberating" the wine cellar, and the exquisite F. Scott Fitzgerald suite.
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