This Week in Literary History: Nov. 17 to Nov. 25

Nov. 17: On this day in 1919 Sylvia Beach opened the doors to Shakespeare and Company, Paris’ first English-language bookstore and lending library.

 

St. Petersburg and the world of Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky used the slums of St. Petersburg and Leo Tolstoy used the trappings of its upper ranks in society to make the same point in their novels.