Walking Paris with Henry Miller

Paris in the winter had all the stark angles of bare sycamores and gray steeples, but we found it welcoming and friendly. So crucial to Miller during the Depression, food became our main preoccupation, being only a few blocks from the markets of Rue Montorgueil. The waiters at the cafés were polite and engaging, appreciating our juvenile forays into their language. We saw a ballet, a play at the Comedie Francaise, three cemeteries, ten churches, and a dozen museums.

Now that we’ve finished up the Montparnasse walking tour, I thought I’d post some maps to help you better orient yourself to this neighborhood of Paris. Street Map I’ve put together a street map of the area here. You can click the map at the top of the page to open a larger version of the image. [...]

The Schranks, who are caricatured in Tropic of Cancer as Tania and Sylvester, provided Miller a free meal each Monday night. However, Miller's principle interest in these visits was not food. Rather, he was smitten with Bertha, largely due to the uncanny physical resemblance she bore to his estranged wife June.

The stone tablet on the wall above 62 rue d’Assas commemorates an especially turbulent period in the life of Swedish writer August Strindberg, who spent six months here beginning in February 1896 when the building was a Catholic hotel known as the Pension Orfila. Severely depressed due to the recent collapse of his marriage, Strindberg arrived [...]