Independent bookstore in the 1837 Pirate's Alley townhouse where William Faulkner lived in 1925 and wrote his first novel; the smell of pipe smoke is often reported.
624 Pirate's Alley, New Orleans, LA 70116
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Bookstore - free to enter; purchases at retail prices. Friends of the Faulkner Society events occasionally ticketed.
Access
Limited Access
Small two-room bookshop in an 1837 townhouse with narrow doorways and a low threshold
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1837 · Building where William Faulkner wrote Soldiers' Pay (1925-1926) · Literary Landmark designation (June 25, 1993) · Home of the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society · Notable French Quarter independent bookstore (founded 1988)
The townhouse at 624 Pirate's Alley was built in 1837 on the narrow alley that runs between the St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo. Pirate's Alley itself - though never a documented haunt of historical pirates - overlaps with the former site of a Spanish-colonial calabozo (jail) that stood on the cathedral grounds in the 18th century. The alley took the 'Pirate's' name from later 19th-century folklore.
In 1925, the 27-year-old William Faulkner moved to New Orleans for what would become a formative six-month residency. He sub-leased the ground floor of 624 Pirate's Alley from the artist William Spratling, who held the lease on the entire building from a Creole family. During this six-month residency, Faulkner moved in literary circles that included Sherwood Anderson and worked on the manuscript of what would become his first novel, Soldiers' Pay (published 1926). Soldiers' Pay launched his literary career, and within a decade he had published The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), and Light in August (1932).
Faulkner left New Orleans in 1925 and returned only occasionally over the rest of his life. The townhouse changed hands and uses through the 20th century.
In 1988, Joseph J. DeSalvo Jr. and his wife Rosemary James founded Faulkner House Books as a small two-room independent bookstore specializing in first editions, fine literature, and works by Southern authors. They also founded the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society, a literary nonprofit that has supported and promoted Southern writers since 1990.
On June 25, 1993, the Friends of New Orleans Public Library designated 624 Pirate's Alley a Literary Landmark in honor of William Faulkner. The bookstore is one of the most-visited French Quarter literary destinations.
Sources
According to French Quarter ghost-tour and tourism aggregations (Ghost City Tours: The Ghosts of Pirate's Alley; Louisiana Haunted Houses; Southern Spirit Guide), the most-reported apparition inside Faulkner House Books is William Faulkner himself. Visitors describe glimpsing a figure resembling Faulkner sitting at the writing desk currently on display in the shop. The most commonly reported phenomenon is the smell of pipe smoke - Faulkner was a documented lifelong pipe smoker - wafting through the small, no-smoking, two-room shop with no visible source.
Faulkner's biography does not include a documented death event at this property; he died in Mississippi in 1962. The bookstore lore reads as a literary affectional haunting rather than as a trauma-based haunting, and the bookstore owners have been gentle in their public framing - acknowledging the reports while preserving the building's character as a literary landmark.
The surrounding Pirate's Alley accumulates a denser layer of folklore. The alley overlaps with the former site of the Spanish-colonial calabozo, where 18th-century prisoners were held. Walking-tour operators (Ghost City Tours; Southern Spirit Guide) report apparitions of Jean Lafitte - the early-19th-century New Orleans privateer - in the alley after dark. The Lafitte report is folkloric; Lafitte's actual documented connection to the alley is limited, though his connection to French Quarter and Barataria Bay history is well established.
This entry treats the Faulkner residency as documented and the Faulkner-apparition reports as community lore tied affectionately to the building's literary history.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Visit the small two-room Faulkner House Books, designated a Literary Landmark by the Friends of New Orleans Public Library in 1993 in honor of William Faulkner. Pirate's Alley itself - the narrow alley between St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo - is a regular stop on French Quarter walking tours and overlaps with the former site of a Spanish-colonial calabozo (jail).
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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