Metro Stop Paris: An Underground History of the City of Light

Metro Stop Paris recounts the extraordinary and colorful history of the City of Light, by way of twelve Metro stops—a voyage across both space and time. At each stop a Parisian building, or street, or tomb or landmark sparks a story that holds particular significance for that area of the city.

Dallas takes us to the jazz cellars and literary cafes of Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Pres; the catacombs at Hell’s Gate; and the Opera during the days of Claude Debussy. A darker side of Paris emerges at the Trocadero stop and a charitable side at the Gare du Nord, which highlights the work of Saint Vincent de Paul. Finally, our journey ends at Pere-Lachaise cemetery with the little-known story of Oscar Wilde’s curious involvement in the Dreyfus affair, one of France’s greatest legal scandals. From Hell (the Denfert-Rochereau stop on the south side of the city) to Heaven (the Gare du Nord at the north end of Paris), Metro Stop Paris carries readers on a journey of the heart and mind.

Metro Stop Paris is a thinker’s guide to Paris made up of “slices of life,” little vignettes drawn from Paris’s two thousand years of history. Taken separately, these are charming historic tales about a city known and loved by many, but read as a whole Metro Stop Paris goes straight to the heart of what is quintessentially Parisian.