Sylvia Beach
Encyclopedia
Sylvia Beach born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American
-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris
, where she was one of the leading expatriate
figures between World War I
and II
.
, on March 14, 1887, the second of three daughters of Sylvester Beach and Eleanor Thomazine Orbison. Although named Nancy after her grandmother Orbison, she later decided to change her name to Sylvia. Her maternal grandparents were missionaries to India, and her father, a Presbyterian minister, was descended from several generations of clergymen. When the girls were young the family lived in Baltimore and in Bridgeton, New Jersey
. Then in 1901, the family moved to France
upon Sylvester Beach's appointment as assistant minister of the American Church in Paris and director of the American student center.
As a young woman, Beach spent over three years in Paris (1902–1905), but returned to New Jersey in 1906 when her father became minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. After her family returned to the United States, Beach made several return trips to Europe, lived for two years in Spain, and worked for the Balkan Commission of the Red Cross. During the last years of the Great War, she was drawn back to Paris to study contemporary French literature.
While conducting some research at the Bibliothèque Nationale
, Beach found the name of Adrienne Monnier
’s bookshop in a French literary journal and decided to seek out the little store on the rue de l'Odéon
. There she was warmly welcomed by the owner who, to her surprise, was a plump fair-haired young woman wearing a garment that looked like a cross between a peasant’s dress and a nun’s habit, “with a long full skirt … and a sort of tight-fitting velvet waistcoat over a white silk blouse. She was in gray and white like her bookshop.” Although Beach was dressed in a Spanish cloak and hat, Monnier knew immediately that she was American. At that first meeting Monnier declared, "I like Americans very much." Beach replied that she liked France very much. They later became lovers and lived together for 36 years until Monnier’s suicide in 1955.
, Paul Valéry
and Jules Romains
. Inspired by the literary life of the Left Bank and by Monnier’s efforts to promote innovative writing, Beach dreamed of starting a branch of Monnier’s book shop in New York that would offer contemporary French works to American readers. Since her only capital was USD$3,000 which her mother gave her from her savings, Beach could not afford such a venture in New York. However, Paris rents were much cheaper and the exchange rates favorable, so with Monnier’s help, Beach opened an English language bookstore and lending library that she named Shakespeare and Company
. Four years beforehand, Monnier had been among the first women in France to found her own bookstore. Beach's bookstore was located at 8 rue Dupuytren in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.
Shakespeare and Company quickly attracted both French and American readers - including a number of aspiring writers to whom Beach offered hospitality and encouragement as well as books. As the franc
dropped in value and the favorable exchange rate attracted a huge influx of Americans, Beach’s shop flourished and soon needed more space. In May 1921, Shakespeare and Company moved to 12 rue de l'Odéon
, just across the street from Monnier’s Maison des Amis des Livres. Shakespeare and Company gained considerable fame after it published James Joyce
's Ulysses
in 1922, as a result of Joyce's inability to get an edition out in English-speaking countries. Beach would later be financially stranded when Joyce signed on with another publisher, leaving Beach in debt after bankrolling, and suffering severe losses from, the publication of Ulysses.
Shakespeare and Company experienced difficulty throughout the Great Depression
of the 1930s, but it managed to keep afloat by the generosity of Beach's circle of wealthy friends, including Bryher
. In 1936 when Beach thought that she would be forced to close her shop, André Gide organized a group of writers into a club called Friends of Shakespeare and Company. Subscribers paid 200 francs a year to attend readings at Shakespeare and Company. Although subscriptions were limited to a select group of 200 people (the maximum number the store could accommodate), the renown of the French and American authors participating in readings during those two years attracted considerable attention to the store. Beach recalled that by then, “we were so glorious with all these famous writers and all the press we received that we began to do very well in business”. Shakespeare and Company remained open after the Fall of Paris, but by the end of 1941, Beach was forced to close.
She was interned for six months during World War II
, but kept her books hidden in a vacant apartment upstairs at 12 rue de l'Odeon. Ernest Hemingway
symbolically "liberated" the shop in person in 1944, but it never re-opened for business.
, D. H. Lawrence
, Ernest Hemingway
, Ezra Pound
, T. S. Eliot
, Valery Larbaud
, Thornton Wilder
, André Gide
, Leon-Paul Fargue
, George Antheil
, Robert McAlmon
, Gertrude Stein
, Stephen Benet, Aleister Crowley
, Harry Crosby
, Caresse Crosby
, John Quinn
, Berenice Abbott
, Man Ray
, and many others.
After Monnier's suicide in 1955, Beach had a relationship with Camilla Steinbrugge.
American George Whitman
opened a new bookshop in 1951 at a different location in Paris (in the rue de la Bûcherie
) originally called Le Mistral, but renamed Shakespeare and Company in 1964 in honor of the late Sylvia Beach.
Although her income was modest during the last years of her life, she was widely honored for her publication of Ulysses and her support of aspiring writers during the 1920s. She remained in Paris until her death in 1962, and was buried in Princeton Cemetery
. Her papers are archived at Princeton University
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where she was one of the leading expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
figures between World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life
Beach was born in her father's parsonage in Baltimore, Maryland, United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, on March 14, 1887, the second of three daughters of Sylvester Beach and Eleanor Thomazine Orbison. Although named Nancy after her grandmother Orbison, she later decided to change her name to Sylvia. Her maternal grandparents were missionaries to India, and her father, a Presbyterian minister, was descended from several generations of clergymen. When the girls were young the family lived in Baltimore and in Bridgeton, New Jersey
Bridgeton, New Jersey
Bridgeton is a city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States, in the south part of the state, on the Cohansey River, near Delaware Bay. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 25,349. It is the county seat of Cumberland County...
. Then in 1901, the family moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
upon Sylvester Beach's appointment as assistant minister of the American Church in Paris and director of the American student center.
As a young woman, Beach spent over three years in Paris (1902–1905), but returned to New Jersey in 1906 when her father became minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. After her family returned to the United States, Beach made several return trips to Europe, lived for two years in Spain, and worked for the Balkan Commission of the Red Cross. During the last years of the Great War, she was drawn back to Paris to study contemporary French literature.
While conducting some research at the Bibliothèque Nationale
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
, Beach found the name of Adrienne Monnier
Adrienne Monnier
Adrienne Monnier was a French poet, bookseller and publisher and an important figure in the modernist writing scene in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.-"La Maison des Amis des Livres":...
’s bookshop in a French literary journal and decided to seek out the little store on the rue de l'Odéon
Rue de l'Odéon
The rue de l'Odéon is a street in the Odéon quarter of the 6th arrondissement of Paris on the Left Bank. Because of the presence of two bohemian bookstores, and the coterie of emergent Anglophone writers surrounding them, James James nicknamed it "Stratford-on-Odéon".- History :This street was...
. There she was warmly welcomed by the owner who, to her surprise, was a plump fair-haired young woman wearing a garment that looked like a cross between a peasant’s dress and a nun’s habit, “with a long full skirt … and a sort of tight-fitting velvet waistcoat over a white silk blouse. She was in gray and white like her bookshop.” Although Beach was dressed in a Spanish cloak and hat, Monnier knew immediately that she was American. At that first meeting Monnier declared, "I like Americans very much." Beach replied that she liked France very much. They later became lovers and lived together for 36 years until Monnier’s suicide in 1955.
Shakespeare and Company
Beach immediately became a member of Monnier’s lending library, and when in Paris she regularly attended the readings by authors such as André GideAndré Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
and Jules Romains
Jules Romains
Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule , was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement...
. Inspired by the literary life of the Left Bank and by Monnier’s efforts to promote innovative writing, Beach dreamed of starting a branch of Monnier’s book shop in New York that would offer contemporary French works to American readers. Since her only capital was USD$3,000 which her mother gave her from her savings, Beach could not afford such a venture in New York. However, Paris rents were much cheaper and the exchange rates favorable, so with Monnier’s help, Beach opened an English language bookstore and lending library that she named Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company (bookshop)
Shakespeare and Company is the name of two independent bookstores on Paris' Left Bank. The first was opened by Sylvia Beach on 17 November 1919 at 8 rue Dupuytren before moving to larger premises at 12 rue de l'Odéon in the 6th arrondissement in 1922. During the 1920s, it was a gathering place for...
. Four years beforehand, Monnier had been among the first women in France to found her own bookstore. Beach's bookstore was located at 8 rue Dupuytren in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.
Shakespeare and Company quickly attracted both French and American readers - including a number of aspiring writers to whom Beach offered hospitality and encouragement as well as books. As the franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
dropped in value and the favorable exchange rate attracted a huge influx of Americans, Beach’s shop flourished and soon needed more space. In May 1921, Shakespeare and Company moved to 12 rue de l'Odéon
Rue de l'Odéon
The rue de l'Odéon is a street in the Odéon quarter of the 6th arrondissement of Paris on the Left Bank. Because of the presence of two bohemian bookstores, and the coterie of emergent Anglophone writers surrounding them, James James nicknamed it "Stratford-on-Odéon".- History :This street was...
, just across the street from Monnier’s Maison des Amis des Livres. Shakespeare and Company gained considerable fame after it published James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
in 1922, as a result of Joyce's inability to get an edition out in English-speaking countries. Beach would later be financially stranded when Joyce signed on with another publisher, leaving Beach in debt after bankrolling, and suffering severe losses from, the publication of Ulysses.
Shakespeare and Company experienced difficulty throughout the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
of the 1930s, but it managed to keep afloat by the generosity of Beach's circle of wealthy friends, including Bryher
Bryher
Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate. Her father was the shipowner and financier John Ellerman, who at the time of his death in 1933, was the richest Englishman who had ever lived...
. In 1936 when Beach thought that she would be forced to close her shop, André Gide organized a group of writers into a club called Friends of Shakespeare and Company. Subscribers paid 200 francs a year to attend readings at Shakespeare and Company. Although subscriptions were limited to a select group of 200 people (the maximum number the store could accommodate), the renown of the French and American authors participating in readings during those two years attracted considerable attention to the store. Beach recalled that by then, “we were so glorious with all these famous writers and all the press we received that we began to do very well in business”. Shakespeare and Company remained open after the Fall of Paris, but by the end of 1941, Beach was forced to close.
She was interned for six months during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but kept her books hidden in a vacant apartment upstairs at 12 rue de l'Odeon. Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
symbolically "liberated" the shop in person in 1944, but it never re-opened for business.
Later life
In 1956, Beach wrote Shakespeare and Company, a memoir of the inter-war years that details the cultural life of Paris at the time. The book contains first-hand observations of James JoyceJames Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Valery Larbaud
Valery Larbaud
Valery Larbaud was a French writer.-Life:He was born in Vichy, Allier, the only child of a pharmacist. His father died when he was 8, and he was brought up by his mother and aunt. His father had been owner of the Vichy Saint-Yorre mineral water springs, and the family fortune assured him an easy...
, Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
, André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Leon-Paul Fargue
Léon-Paul Fargue
Léon-Paul Fargue was a French poet and essayist.He was born in Paris, France on rue Coquilliére. As a poet he was noted for his poetry of atmosphere and detail. His work spanned numerous literary movements...
, George Antheil
George Antheil
George Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor. A self-described "Bad Boy of Music", his modernist compositions amazed and appalled listeners in Europe and the US during the 1920s with their cacophonous celebration of mechanical devices.Returning permanently to...
, Robert McAlmon
Robert McAlmon
Robert Menzies McAlmon was an American author, poet and publisher.-Life:McAlmon was born in Clifton, Kansas, the youngest of ten children of an itinerant Presbyterian minister....
, Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, Stephen Benet, Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby was an American heir, a bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a member of the Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J....
, Caresse Crosby
Mary Phelps Jacob
Caresse Crosby , born Mary Phelps Jacob , was an American patron of the arts, poet, publisher, and peace activist...
, John Quinn
John Quinn (collector)
John Quinn was a second generation Irish-American corporate lawyer in New York, who for a time was an important patron of major figures of post-impressionism and literary modernism, and collector in particular of original manuscripts.- Life :...
, Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott , born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.-Youth:...
, Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, and many others.
American George Whitman
George Whitman
George Whitman is the proprietor of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. He was a contemporary of such Beat poets as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He is a grand-nephew of American poet Walt Whitman....
opened a new bookshop in 1951 at a different location in Paris (in the rue de la Bûcherie
Rue de la Bûcherie
Rue de la Bûcherie is a street in Paris, France.- History :Near the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris and the Place Maubert, between La Seine and Boulevard Saint-GermainThe Rue de la Bûcherie is one of Paris' oldest Rive Gauche streets....
) originally called Le Mistral, but renamed Shakespeare and Company in 1964 in honor of the late Sylvia Beach.
Although her income was modest during the last years of her life, she was widely honored for her publication of Ulysses and her support of aspiring writers during the 1920s. She remained in Paris until her death in 1962, and was buried in Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Borough of Princeton, New Jersey. It is owned by the Nassau Presbyterian Church. John F. Hageman in his 1878 history of Princeton, New Jersey refers to the cemetery as: "The Westminster Abbey of the United States."...
. Her papers are archived at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
.
External links
- Sylvia Beach Papers at the Princeton University LibraryPrinceton University LibraryPrinceton University Library is the main library system of Princeton University. With holdings of more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 37,000 linear feet of manuscripts, it is headquartered in the Harvey S...
- Sylvia Beach Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Sylvia Beach materials, correspondence, and The James Joyce Collection at the University at Buffalo LibrariesUniversity at Buffalo LibrariesThe University at Buffalo Libraries is the university library system of the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. The library's collections includes some 3.6 million print volumes, as well as media, and special collections. The Libraries subscribe to some 350 research databases...
- 1919 passport photo; Sylvia Beach