George Whitman

George Whitman (December 12, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was an American bookseller who lived most of his life in France. He was the founder and proprietor of the second Shakespeare and Company, which was named after Sylvia Beach's celebrated original bookstore of the same name (1919 to 1941) on Paris's Left Bank. He was a contemporary of writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence Durrell, as well as a lifelong friend of the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In 2006 he was awarded the Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal by the French government for his contribution to the arts over the previous fifty years. Early life and education Whitman was born in East Orange, New Jersey, and grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. When he was a boy, his family spent two years living in Nanjing, China, where his physics professor father, Walter, had a guest professorship. This early adventure abroad established Whitman's lifelong passion for travel and far-flung places. He graduated with a degree in journalism from Boston University in 1935.