Sylvia Beach

Sylvia Beach (14 March 1887 – 5 October 1962), 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.

She is known for her Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, where she published James Joyce's book Ulysses (1922), and encouraged the publication of and sold copies of Hemingway's first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923).

Beach was born in her father's parsonage in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on 14 March 1887, the second of three daughters of Sylvester Beach and Eleanor Thomazine Orbison. She had an older sister, Holly, and a younger sister, Cyprian. 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.^{[failed verification]}

Beach spent 1902–1905 in Paris, returning to New Jersey in 1906 when her father became minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. She 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.^{[failed verification]}

While conducting research at the Bibliothèque Nationale, in a French literary journal Beach read of a lending library and bookshop, La Maison des Amis des Livres at 7 rue de l'Odéon, Paris VI. There she was welcomed by the owner who, to her surprise, was a plump, fair-haired young woman, Adrienne Monnier. Monnier was 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 said later she knew immediately that Beach was American. At that first meeting, Monnier declared, "I like America 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.

Beach immediately became a member of Monnier's lending library, where she regularly attended readings by authors such as André Gide, Paul Valéry and Jules Romains.^{[citation needed]} Inspired by the literary life of the Left Bank and by Monnier's efforts to promote innovative writing, she 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 US$3,000, which her mother gave her from her savings, she could not afford such a venture in New York.^{[citation needed]} However, Paris rents were much cheaper and the exchange rates favorable, so with Monnier's help, she opened an English language bookstore and lending library that she named Shakespeare and Company. Monnier had been among the first women in France to found her own bookstore four years before. Beach's bookstore was located at 8 rue Dupuytren, Paris VI.^{[failed verification]}

Shakespeare and Company quickly attracted French and American readers, including aspiring writers to whom Beach offered hospitality, encouragement, and books. As the franc dropped in value and the favorable exchange rate attracted many Americans, her 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.

In July 1920, Beach met Irish writer James Joyce at a dinner party hosted by French poet André Spire. Soon after, Joyce joined her lending library. Joyce had been trying, unsuccessfully, to publish his manuscript for his masterpiece, Ulysses, and Beach, seeing his frustration, offered to publish it. Shakespeare and Company gained considerable fame after it published Ulysses in 1922, as a result of Joyce's inability to get an edition out in English-speaking countries. She was later financially stranded when Joyce signed on with another publisher, leaving her in debt after she had bankrolled, and suffered severe losses from, the publication of Ulysses.^{[failed verification]}