Shakespeare and Company: The Story of an American Bookshop in Paris
by Sylvia Beach (1956)
When I was seven, my mother took us to a summer reading program at my small town library. I saw it like some kids see Cinderella’s Castle when first entering Disney World. I was allowed to check out five books and get five more each week. Part of the program was to record what I read and to select books from each section of the Dewey Decimal System (100s, 200s, etc.). My world has never been the same.
Now I view bookstores with a similar appreciation. I like browsing the stores and then taking home my choice. I like having the books in my home to revisit when a thought connects me to a particular book. In my travel, I check out a local bookstore when possible. On my 2022 trip to Paris, I prioritized a visit to Shakespeare and Company. I read about it while on my Hemingway binge. The store I visited was not Silvia Beach’s store. It was the next iteration of the original named after Beach’s store in her honor. It looked like her store and evoked the feelings that entering the original might have had. The queue I was standing in agreed.
Sylvia Beach in Paris
In the 1920s, Paris was the center of the world for art and writing. European artists and a cadre of American expats lived there, absorbing the energy and collaborative benefits. An American bookstore in Paris at that time seems logical now, but it wouldn’t have worked before that influx of creatives.
Sylvia Beach considered herself an unlikely candidate for opening a store overseas. But she explored opening one in America and found it too expensive. At that time, it was cheaper to open one in France. Born in Baltimore, Beach grew up in Bridgeton and Princeton, New Jersey. With her family, she spent some time in Paris before the war. She moved to Paris in 1917 at the close of World War I at the age of 30. She lived there the rest of her life and died in France at the age of 75.
Shakespeare and Company: The Story of an American Bookshop in Paris
When it opened in 1919, Shakespeare and Company was the only Parisian source for books in the English language. To emphasize her specialty, Beach named the store after William Shakespeare and displayed portraits of many English and American authors.
Beach’s bookstore was actually a lending library. Members paid monthly subscriptions to borrow books.
Her store was the favorite hangout of the post-World War I generation of writers and artists. Beach was friends with Gertrude Stein. Each hosted gatherings of the 1920’s creatives from all countries, sometimes joining each other. Sylvia Beach became a valued resource for connections. She connected editors, publishers of small reviews, translators, and unknown authors alike. Many writers got their mail at her address. She enjoyed recounting the authors’ visits to her store serving as a salon where ideas were exchanged and relationships formed. On occasion, she assisted writers with non-literary problems. James Joyce was the most extreme example of that support.
James Joyce
James Joyce’s book Ulysses gained much notoriety when it was declared obscene by the standards of the time. However, a later U. S. Supreme Court ruling found the book not obscene. Sylvia Beach is perhaps best known for her role in publishing Ulysses when no one else would. A small literary journal published a few installments of the book but was forced to stop when an obscenity suit was filed. Joyce was one of Beach’s first subscribers and soon became a regular. To publish Joyce’s book, Beach found a Parisian printer and secured a thousand subscribers. She published under the imprint of her store, Shakespeare and Company. Her quiet little bookshop got much attention as a result.
In the aftermath, Beach became a type of business manager for Joyce. She acted as his agent and tried to assist in limiting the many copyright violations others made of Joyce’s work. In addition, she managed many of his finances, even helping his family after Joyce’s eye surgery. Eventually, there was a falling out with Beach releasing the rights to Ulysses.
The Depression and World War II
Shakespeare and Company struggled through the 1930s, fighting the Depression and then the rise of Nazism. At one point, several of Beach’s friends donated money to keep the store open by purchasing more expensive subscriptions. However, the store closed in 1941 when a German officer threatened to confiscate all her merchandise. Beach and her friends took everything out of the store and hid it. Beach was eventually taken to an internment camp for many months.
Beach relates an unusual end to the war for her area of Paris. Hemingway appeared in his questionable role with what he called the “Hem Division.” Going straight to Shakespeare and Company, he asked what he could do for Beach and her friends. At their behest, Hemingway and the soldiers he traveled with eliminated nearby snipers freeing Beach’s group as Paris was liberated.
After the war, she refused to reopen the store. At this point, she wrote her memoir, which was wrapped up in the history of her bookstore, Shakespeare and Company.
My Thoughts
The era of the 1920s in Paris is exciting to me. Like Gil Bender from “Midnight in Paris,” I may have found that time more exciting than my own. Creating fertile ground for myriad artists of many nationalities adds to my interest in Shakespeare and Company as a bookstore. An excellent article on Sylvia Beach and the bookstore delves into how cultural centers like 1920s Paris become a stimulus for an explosion of the arts. The article cites Randall Collins, who explains how these gatherings increase creativity and production through a feedback loop.[i]
Shakespeare and Company outlines a piece of the history of occupied Paris. Beach was interred with other American women shortly after Germany declared war on the United States. Beach briefly described but did not emphasize this part of her story. This is surprising given that it resulted in the permanent closing of the store. It had to have significantly impacted her personally as well. Her memoir focuses instead on the comings and goings of the community of writers hosted by the store.
As a sidebar, my used copy of Shakespeare and Company was printed in 1959. It has an inscription on the half-title page at the front of the book. The inscription is from a husband to his wife for Christmas 1959. When I saw the note, I wondered about this couple for whom Beach’s book was a Christmas present. A book as a gift is not unusual. It’s a gift I would have liked. Something about the date and the handwriting with the dash for each “t.” Unfortunately, his name isn’t signed. The inscription seems simple and elegant at the same time, “I love you.” I hope she was pleased with the gift.
If I win the lottery, I will open a bookstore, a smallish cozy, carefully curated store. Like the reading program in my youth, I will include books from all genres, perhaps erring on the side of non-fiction. That’s my preference, though bookstores often have a fiction section equal to all the non-fiction combined. I can’t imagine any more fun than visiting with people about books and hosting authors for signings. Stocking the store with books and displays to encourage readers is a dream. To do that in Paris would be icing on the cake. Like Sylvia, my French is not great, but I would cater to American ex-pats and the many English speakers in Paris.
Shakespeare and Company is an excellent capsule of some extraordinary times in Paris. I recommend it as a history and literary resource. Finally, it is the story of a remarkable woman making her way with many of the greats of all time.
[i] Graham, Elyse. Sylvia Beach. Modernism Lab. Campus Press Yale. https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/sylvia-beach/
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