Countless authors and poets have lived and worked in Paris and here are their first-hand accounts and personal reflections. Gustave Flaubert lived through the 1848 French Revolution and Edith Wharton witnessed mobilisation for the Great War. George Orwell describes gruelling work in the depths of Parisian kitchens, whilst American travel writer, F. Berkeley Smith, casts an amused eye over the citys lavish restaurants. Honoré de Balzac gives us Parisian intellectuals and Pablo Picasso is guest of honour at Gertrude Steins salon.

From the taking of the Bastille to a bookshop visit by Ernest Hemingway, this anthology celebrates the places, the people and the history of the magical, vibrant city of Paris.