Today, Shakespeare and Co is so well-known it's as likely to be as full of tourists as it is writers; its golden era, some say, has long since passed. But Sylvia says the people it attracts still share one crucial trait with the famous authors who once visited: they are all outsiders. “We have a real mix of people visiting – tourists and writers and readers, from all countries and generations. What I like though is that they're nearly always people who are far away from home. It's rare to find a French person sleeping here."