SOURCE: Cody, Morrill, and Hugh Ford. “Sylvia Beach.” In The Women of Montparnasse, pp. 19-32. New York: Cornwall Books, 1984.

[In the following essay, Cody and Ford recount the life and work of Sylvia Beach, focusing on the history of Beach's bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.]

The most remarkable characteristic of Montparnasse in the twenties was in my opinion, the way French, American, English, and Irish writers were drawn together to talk and to read each other's works. From this penetrating experience they undoubtedly learned more than they would have absorbed from any other comparable source. Largely responsible for this amalgam of ideas were two gifted women, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, who have never before been given full credit for their achievement.

When I returned to Paris in 1923, my wife, Frances, and I carried three letters of introduction given us by her friend, English Walling, a New York writer who had visited Paris the previous year. The letters were addressed Ernest Hemingway, “a young newspaperman who may be fun,” William B., another journalist of somewhat longer standing, and Sylvia Beach, “who has a little shop on the Left Bank named Shakespeare and Company.” All three became lifelong friends, but I headed first for Sylvia Beach, as I had assignment from Publishers Weekly to do a piece about her remarkable shop.

She received me cordially, as she received everyone, smiling at me and inviting me to sit down. Sylvia had the brightest and sharpest blue eyes I had ever seen, unforgettable, intelligent, but also most kindly. I gave her my letter and asked if she would give me information on which to base an article about Shakespeare and Company, her little shop at 12 rue de l'Odeon.

“Of course I will,” she replied, and we went to work at once. She later told me that this was the first article about her bookshop to appear on either side of the Atlantic.

Sylvia was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister in Princeton, New Jersey, who had at an earlier time been the director of an American art center in Paris, and Sylvia had thus spent five years in Paris, beginning at the age of fourteen. She had fallen in love with Paris and with France, as so many English and Americans have done, and she was fortunate in knowing it during the Belle Epoque. Even after she went to Princeton with her father, she continued to visit Paris regularly for vacations and study. Her interest was always in books, and she dreamed one day of having a bookshop in New York where she might sell the works of French writers of the then modern school. But, alas, she did not have the financial backing for such a project, but perhaps, she thought, something would one day turn up to facilitate her ambition. It did, but not in quite the way she had anticipated.

In 1916 Sylvia was living in one of those delightful apartments of the Palais Royal with her sister, Cyprian. One day she read in a French literary journal an item about a bookshop on the Left Bank called La Maison des Amis des Livres, the house of the friends of books. Who was a greater friend of books than Sylvia? She rushed off to explore this shop which had extended a welcoming hand through its name. There she met the owner, Adrienne Monnier, a kindred soul if ever there was one. Their acquaintance ripened into a deep friendship and a determination that Sylvia, too, must have her bookshop. At first, they thought it should be a branch of La Maison des Amis des Livres in New York, but that idea was abandoned when they realized the high costs involved. La Maison des Amis des Livres ran on a shoestring and could not support a branch anywhere. Adrienne Monnier had started her little shop in the hope of attracting the writers and readers of the new trends in French literature. She had succeeded. They were attracted first by the warm character of this little woman with her gray blue eyes, fair hair and skin, her unusual clothes, which seemed to be half nun and half peasant, and by her mind, quick and alert. To her shop came André Gide, Valéry Larbaud, Jules Romains, Paul Valéry, Paul Claudel, and many other literary giants of the time. They came to browse, to talk, and on occasion to recite their works. The Maison was more of a club and a lending library than a bookshop. Sylvia saw at once that Adrienne had already created the kind of atmosphere that she dreamed of having. The idea of a French bookshop in New York was abandoned and the concept of an Anglo-American literary gathering place in Paris was born.

In the initial phases, Adrienne was an asset of immense value. She knew the hows and whys of dealing with landlords, carpenters, plumbers, and government offices. It was Adrienne who found the very small shop for rent in the nearby rue Dupuytren, not far from Adrienne's shop. A couple of years later Sylvia was able to move to a better shop directly across the street from the Maison des Amis des Livres. Here Shakespeare and Company flourished spiritually, if not materially. Here came Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert McAlmon, Janet Flanner, Ford Madox Ford, Kay Boyle, and many, many more. This, too, became a club and a lending library rather than a bookshop because the prices of English and American books were so high when translated into French francs. They came to read and to browse and to borrow and occasionally to buy. The little shop barely survived, financially, but it was a joyous and inspiring place to gather. Soon, too, the French writers around the Maison and the Anglo-Americans and Shakespeare and Company began, slowly, to merge, to know each other's works, and to form lasting friendships. “Sylvia Beach carried pollen like a bee,” André Chamson said. “She cross-fertilized these writers. She did more to link England, the United States, Ireland, and France than four great ambassadors combined.” Sylvia had opened her bookshop at exactly the right time, November 19, 1919. The war was over and the influx of Americans was just beginning. And so she was in Paris at the start of this remarkably creative period in literature.

Most of the meager financial support for Shakespeare and Company came from the fees paid by subscribers for the right to borrow a book or two for a period of two weeks. The world for subscriber in French is abonné. Holly, Sylvia's other sister, immediately began calling subscribers the “bunnies,” and bunnies they remained for everyone thereafter. It is interesting to note that the first three bunnies were all French, André Gide being one of them. Other early bunnies were Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. And as bunnies always do, they multiplied quickly until the little shop was as crowded as the Maison across the street.

The relationship between Sylvia and Gertrude Stein was an off and on affair. At first, they seemed to like each other, but when Sylvia began publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, Gertrude and Alice canceled their subscriptions and severed relations. Gertrude could not imagine that anyone would choose to publish Joyce instead of Stein! Sylvia's comment about Gertrude and Alice in her autobiography is astute: “Alice had a great deal more finesse than Gertrude. And she was grown up; Gertrude was a child, something of an infant prodigy.” But later Sylvia and Gertrude made up their differences by agreeing never to mention Joyce. In that period Sylvia was to bring many visitors to the studio in the rue de Fleurus to meet “La Stein.” Everybody, it seemed, wanted to meet Gertrude, and most of them did because she liked such attention. The way to meet Gertrude was to arrange matters with Sylvia Beach. Meeting Gertrude was like taking a special tour of Paris by night.

Sylvia first met James Joyce at a party, and they were greatly taken by each other. She had, of course, read all of his works that had been printed and also the parts of Ulysses which had appeared in Margaret Anderson's Little Review. She was deeply impressed with his literary talent. The day after the party Joyce came around to see her and poured out to her willing ear all his problems. In New York, protectors of the public morals had seized copies of the Little Review, and the entire work was now prohibited in the United States. In England, Harriet Weaver, who had intended to publish Ulysses as soon as Joyce finished it, decided that it would encounter similar difficulties there and postponed publication temporarily. Meanwhile, Joyce had a family of four to house and feed, and he was still writing the last part of Ulysses. In Trie where he had lived before coming to Paris, he had earned a living by teaching English, but now his need to finish his book was so strong that he could not focus his attention on any other activity. Sylvia was sympathetic, but she had no money to lend him. Nevertheless the idea of publishing his great work was intriguing. She thrust it away at first as impossible of fulfillment, but slowly she became possessed by it.

Joyce was a thin man of medium height. His manner and carriage did not indicate his inner strength. His handshake was limp, his eyes watery, his manner formal and somewhat distant. He expected to be called “Mr. Joy and not even Sylvia got around to addressing him otherwise, although he of course, called her “Sylvia.”

When Sylvia decided to publish Ulysses, she made careful preparations be sure that the venture did not put her into bankruptcy. She found a printer in Dijon who was prepared to wait for payment for his work until the book actually on sale and whose fees in any case were unusually small. The book was big, 877 pages, and Joyce made so many corrections and additions on galley proofs that he increased the size of the book considerably. But Sylvia plodded on with all these trials and tribulations, lending Joyce money in substantial quantities, denying herself everything in order to get the book in print. Joyce was grateful, but his ego did not really permit him to understand the sacrifice Sylvia was making for him. The book was finally published on Joyce's birthday, February 2, 1922. It was an event of international literary importance that made Sylvia, as well as Joyce, famous around the world.

The following year, when I first met Sylvia, I obtained, through her good offices, an exclusive interview with Joyce. It has often been said that Joyce never gave an interview, but mine was the exception that proved the rule. It was published in the Baltimore Sun, a paper for which I did occasional features.

Joyce's basic ingratitude toward Sylvia showed itself more markedly in later years. When publication of Ulysses was finally permitted in both Britain and the United States, Joyce went off on his own to make contracts with commercial publishers, leaving Sylvia completely out of the negotiations and keeping all the benefits for himself, even though she had undeniable rights as its first publisher. But she was not going to fight with the man whose work she so admired. Joyce's greatest personal pleasure was spending money, often lavishly, and never on himself. He liked to give presents, especially to his wife, Nora, and to entertain in good restaurants where he bought fine wines and succulent dishes. He himself drank a very ordinary white wine and ate almost nothing. Joyce was devoted to his wife and children, Lucia and Giorgio. But the devotion of James Joyce and Nora had no literary flavor. She boasted that she had no interest in his writings and would never bother to read Ulysses. She didn't quite say that they were above her; she just implied it.

The most remarkable characteristic of Nora Joyce was her silence. In the presence of her husband she would sit demurely, looking interested, smiling a little now and then. But it is true that no one else said very much when James Joyce was around either, except to the Master himself. This was just as well for Joyce was an interesting man to listen to, but a difficult person with whom to hold any kind of discussion.

When her husband was not around, Nora would chat in hospitable fashion with friends, especially women, about her household affairs or other mundane matters. People liked Nora, and she was welcome at any of the parties where she accompanied Joyce. I do not think she ever went alone.

After the publication of Ulysses, Sylvia was besieged with offers of erotic manuscripts to publish, which she rejected immediately. She had not published Ulysses because of its erotic character, and she had no intention of becoming a specialist in that field. Furthermore, she had her hands full handling one author and she did not want to take on another. It was amusing however, to see the persons who flocked to her shop, manuscripts in hand. Among them was Frank Harris with the story of My Life and Loves. He could not understand why she rejected it without even reading it. Tallulah Bankhead was another who wished to be taken by Shakespeare and Company for the publication of her memoirs, in which she would tell all her secrets, and D. H. Lawrence was most persistent in his efforts to get Sylvia to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover. Still another was the mysterious and somewhat frightened Aleister Crowley with his Diary of a Drug Fiend. On the lighter side was maître d'hôtel of Maxim's, who said he was ready to tell all about the high and mighty who had dined in his restaurant.

But her fame in the world of books did not lessen Sylvia's interest in writing and in the course of the next ten years she came to know most of those who flourished in that period. There was a particular attachment between Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley and both Sylvia and Adrienne Monnier. They were helpful to him in the early years, for it was through Sylvia that he found Jonathan Cape, who became his British publisher, and it was Adrienne who translated the first of his stories to appear in French in her little magazine Navire d'Argent.

Another close friend was Bryher, the wife of Robert McAlmon and daughter of Sir John Ellerman, the shipping tycoon. Sir John and his wife wanted their daughter to enjoy all the benefits of their money and social position, but Anne Winifred would have none of it. To escape her parents' tutelage she married McAlmon soon after she met him, which meant that she never lacked for money while she was free to do as she pleased. She assumed the name Bryher because it was that of one of the Scilly Islands where she had vacationed as a child. While her husband led an extravagant and bohemian life in Paris, Bryher sought seclusion in the country to write poetry. On occasions she visited her husband in Paris and always spent considerable time with Sylvia and Adrienne. She also used her money to help needy writers, particularly in later years when she aided victims of Nazi persecution to escape to the United States.

The number of Sylvia's friends is too long to give here, but it included such diverse personages as Edouard Herriot, the prime minister of France, young writers such as André Chamson, André Maurois, Archibald MacLeish, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson. To have so many friends meant that she gave part of her time to them, while also running a bookshop, caring for Joyce's eye troubles, seeing that he had sufficient money to make him happy, and bringing out edition after edition of Ulysses.

In the middle thirties, with the departure for home of most of her American bunnies and the falling off of the tourist stream, Sylvia's financial troubles became more and more acute. When she was on the verge of giving up her labors, the French writers gathered around to help her by subscribing money and by holding readings of their works at Shakespeare and Company for which admission was charged. This kept her going, but it was hard. And by this time she was feeling tired and somewhat played out. But she kept on just the same. When the war came she was urged to return to America, but she refused and even when her own country became involved she stayed on at 12 rue de l'Odeon.

Then one day a high-ranking Nazi officer came into the shop and in perfect English demanded to purchase a copy of Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which he had seen displayed in the window. Sylvia said she was sorry but it was not for sale since it was the only copy she had and was inscribed to her by the author. The officer became very insistent, and when he left, empty-handed, he said he would be back to confiscate that and other books. Sylvia was frightened; her only source of funds was the books and manuscripts that she had collected and could sell if need be. That afternoon and evening she and the concierge and a couple of friends moved all the books, papers, pictures, and furniture to an empty apartment on the third floor. She even painted out the sign over the door and had a carpenter take down all the built-in bookshelves. Shakespeare and Company had disappeared completely, except of course that Sylvia still lived on the second floor. Whether the officer really came back she never knew. But it was the end of the bookshop, which was erased as though it had never existed.

Sylvia stayed on in France, first for six months in an internment camp and, later, when a conditional residence permit was granted to her, in a small room in a student hostel attached to the University of Paris. In any case, it was too late to leave the country. She visited the empty shop and her apartment above it almost daily, but she never saw the Nazi officer again, and her books and papers were never molested. Her only chore was to report to the police once a week.

Then, in 1944, when the Germans were starting to leave Paris, she returned to her apartment in the rue de l'Odeon, even though sniper shooting was still going on along the street and from the rooftops. She saw no Allied soldiers, however, until one morning when Ernest Hemingway suddenly appeared at her door to say that he had come to “liberate” her. After that happy reunion he went on across the river to liberate the bar of the Ritz Hotel.

But Sylvia did not reopen her shop. She was tired and somewhat discouraged. Also, for the moment at least, she had no ready customers, and it would be some time before the American literary people would return to Paris, if indeed they ever did. She realized that the era in which Shakespeare and Company had a role to play was over. But she stayed on in Paris, writing her memoirs in a lovely book called simply Shakespeare and Company, published in 1959.

It was during this period that I was in charge of the cultural relations section of the American embassy in Paris, and it occurred to me that the time was ripe to have a retrospective exhibit of the great Anglo-Irish, French-American literary flowering which had existed in the twenties in Paris, and I naturally turned to Sylvia Beach for assistance. She welcomed the idea with immense enthusiasm. Many others besides Sylvia contributed their treasures, such as William Bird and his daughter France, Margaret Anderson, Mrs. J. S. Bradley, the Dudley sisters, Florence Gilliam, Maria Jolas, Man Ray, and Alice B. Toklas. Under the guiding hand of the embassy's gifted exhibits officer, Darthea Speyer and her staff, we collected more than two thousand first editions, manuscripts, photographs, drawings, and other mementos of the twenties. We reconstructed a little café with the iron tables and chairs of the period, and somewhere the staff found a player piano which, from a paper roll, belched forth the pounding music of the Ballet Mécanique. I invited all the literary people of the twenties I could find. Many came but, alas, many had to refuse for health reasons, such as Margaret Anderson, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and Bill Bird, among others. But Alice B. Toklas was there under the guiding hand of Thornton Wilder, and Maria Jolas, Florence Gilliam, and André Chamson all came. The list is, happily, a long one. The occasion was momentous. French and British and American authorities were also there. After a two-month showing in Paris, to great crowds daily the exhibit was taken to London for another two-month run. The French government also wanted to take it to the United States under their auspices, but they did not immediately make up their minds, and Sylvia sold all the most important pieces to various American universities, and thus they were suddenly unavailable. In 1977, the new Pompidou Museum made an even larger exhibit on the same subject, but without many of the first editions which had marked the one in the rue du Dragon.

In 1962 I was living in Washington, but came on a visit to Paris in September of that year, and of course I saw Sylvia. She was just the same as ever, lively, enthusiastic, her blue eyes sparkling as before. On the evening of October 4 we both attended a party at the home of Darthea Speyer. I again marveled at the vitality and energy of Sylvia Beach. When the party was over, I drove her back to her little apartment in the rue de l'Odeon. Not that night, but the next, she died in her sleep, seemingly without suffering.

She had left instructions that on her death she was to be cremated and buried in Père Lachaise cemetery. And so two days later, some forty or fifty of us went to the little chapel of the Colombarium in Père Lachaise. After we had waited for at least an hour, an attendant brought forth a small box covered with a green velvet cloth. He walked among us. Not a word was said. And then he disappeared through a door to the main building. It was an unworthy end to such a great person. Afterwards, her friend and admirer Janet Flanner wrote that Sylvia “always gave more than she received.” No epitaph could contain a greater truth.