The Letters of Sylvia Beach

Founder of the Left Bank bookstore Shakespeare and Company and the first publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses, Sylvia Beach was a legendary nurturer of literary talent. In this first collection of her letters, we witness Beach's day-to-day dealings as bookseller and publisher to expatriate Paris. Her friends and patrons included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, H. D., Ezra Pound, Janet Flanner, William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Richard Wright. As a librarian, publicist, publisher, and translator, Beach carved out a unique space for herself in English and French letters. She negotiated with Marianne Moore to place Joyce's work in The Dial, she battled the piracy of Ulysses in the United States, and she struggled to keep Shakespeare and Company afloat during the Depression. These letters shed new light on Beach's childhood in New Jersey; her work in Serbia with the American Red Cross; her internment in a German prison camp; her relationship with French bookstore owner Adrienne Monnier; and her friendship with a new generation of expatriates in the 1950s and 1960s. A consummate American in Paris and a tireless champion of the avant-garde, Beach's warmth and wit made the Rue de l'Odeon the heart of modernist Paris.

Keri Walsh is assistant professor of English at Fordham University in New York.

List of Illustrations Preface by Noel Riley Fitch Acknowledgments Introduction References Chronology THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH I. Friendship and Travel II. World War I III. Shakespeare and Company: Expatriates IV. Shakespeare and Company: 1930s V. Postwar VI. Old Friends and True VII. Legacies Appendix 1. Morrill Cody's Article on Shakespeare and Company for Publishers Weekly (April 12, 1924) Appendix 2. Beach's Letter of Protest against the Pirating of Ulysses (February 2, 1927) Appendix 3. Beach's Unsent Letter to James Joyce (April 12, 1927) Appendix 4. Beach's Speech for the Institut Radiophonique d'Extension Universitaire (May 24, 1927) Glossary of Correspondents Index