Story
The lesbian love story at the heart of a Parisian bookstore
The bookshop Shakespeare and Company has been at the heart of the Paris literary scene for decades, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s.
It was set up by American Sylvia Beach who, along with her partner Adrienne Monnier, ran the store until World War II.
Sylvia Beach was born in Baltimore in 1887 and raised in New Jersey. She first visited Europe as a teenager in 1901, when her father, a Presbyterian clergyman, moved the family to Paris, where he worked at an American church.
Sylvia enjoyed life in France and, after having moved back to the United States with her family, decided to return to live there during the last years of World War I. She did volunteer relief work in France and, in 1918–19, served with the American Red Cross in Serbia.
In November 1919, she opened the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. Initially located on rue Dupuytren, it moved to rue de l'Odéon in 1922.
Sensing the need for books in English, Sylvia specialised in selling books published in Great Britain and the United States. This catered for a large American expatriate community in Paris, as well as French customers who had a growing interest in English-language literature.
The bookshop thus became a hub for a generation of American and British writers in Paris.
Noted writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound visited to buy and borrow books and discuss literary matters. Sylvia's store was so well-known among writers, that she began to fund and give loans in French francs to recently-arrived writers who were waiting for their dollars to come through.
In July 1920, Beach met Irish writer James Joyce who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to publish his masterpiece, Ulysses. Sylvia offered to publish it and gained considerable fame and fortune from doing so in 1922.
Down the street on rue de l'Odéon was another bookstore, La Maison des Amis des Livres.
Its owner Adrienne Monnier was Sylvia's partner. Their love story was said to have begun when Sylvia's hat blew away in the wind on rue de l'Odéon, and Adrienne chased after it. 'J'aime beaucoup l'Amérique,' declared Adrienne, to which Sylvia replied, 'J'aime beaucoup la France.'
They were a couple for 36 years until Adrienné's death in 1955.
Shakespeare and Company experienced some financial difficulties during the 1930s but remained supported by wealthy friends. By the end of 1941, with Paris occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, Sylvia was forced to close the bookstore. She was interned for six months.
In 1944, with Paris liberated, Ernest Hemingway made a point of symbolically liberating Shakespeare and Company, but Sylvia never opened the store again.
Sylvia published her memoirs in 1956 detailing the lives and loves of the vibrant Paris literary scene during the inter-war years. Sylvia died in 1962, survived by Camille Steinbrugge, her partner at the time.
Today, there still is a bookstore in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.
It was opened in 1951 at a different location by American George Whitman. Originally called Le Mistral, he renamed it in 1964 to Shakespeare and Company to honour Sylvia Beach.