Cafe

While perusing the online photo collection of the French Ministry of Culture, I stumbled upon a real gem: A set of ten photos of Le Dôme café taken in the winter of 1931-32. The pictures provide a unique glimpse of the café as Henry Miller would have known it.

One of the first Parisian neighborhoods to draw Henry Miller's fascination was the confluence of streets around the boulevard Beaumarchais in the eleventh arrondissement. Of particular appeal was a little tabac where the local prostitutes gathered in the evening.

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.

A new book explores the history of Le Select, one of Montparnasse's most prominent artistic cafés and a regular hangout for Henry Miller in the 1930's.

Miller’s ironic position as a proofreader of stock market quotations during the midst of The Great Depression afforded him a unique perspective. From his perch at the proofreaders desk he surveyed the collapsing world economy with the sense of detached amusement that permeates Tropic of Cancer...

Au Petit Poucet (The Little Tomb Thumb), like the Brasserie Wepler, is a red-awninged corner café in the Place de Clichy which Henry Miller visited in the early 1930's. From here, he wrote letters to Anaïs Nin and Brassaï…