Shakespeare
and Company by
Sylvia Beach, James Laughlin (Introduction).
"This, a book about books, is one of my
favorites. In just 220 pages, bookshop owner Sylvia Beach, owner
of the bookstore "Shakespeare and Company," paints a
vivid portrait of the social, cultural, and especially , in Paris.
The store opened in November 1919, offering
works of T.S. Elliot, Joyce, Chaucer, and others, a variety of
literary reviews, and photographs of Wilde and Whitman. It ran
first as kind of lending library, and almost immediately the many
native and expatriate writers of Europe were borrowing books--and
giving her their own new writings. Very early customers included
Gide, Maurois, American poet Robert McAlmon , "Mr. and Mrs.
Pound, " and the following couple:
"Not long after I opened my bookshop, two
women came walking down the rue Dupuytren. One of them, with a
very fine face, was stout, wore a long robe, and, on her head, a
most becoming top of a basket. She was accompanied by a slim, dark
whimsical woman: she reminded me of a gypsy. They were Gertrude
Stein and Alice B. Toklas."
Sylvia Beach writes clearly, candidly, and
fondly of her many visitors and friends in prewar Europe,
especially the 1920's ( she and her friends dismantled the shop
when the Nazis threatened to confiscate her books in 1941). She
evokes an entire era though richly told and plentiful anecdotes.
She writes of encounters and friendships with such notables as
Sherwood Anderson, Katherine Anne Porter, Satie, Bryher, H.D.,
Paul Valery, Valery Larbaud, D. H. Lawrence, and Hemingway (at the
end of the book, Hemingway liberates "the wine cellar at the
Ritz" (Hemingway's words) as he and his company try to rid
the Rue l'Odeon of the remaining German snipers. Perhaps her
closest relationship was with James Joyce, and she tells many
stories, both amusing and sad, about him. (Sylvia Beach published
the first edition of the highly controversial "Ulysses"
in 1922.) The book feels intimate; one feels as if M. Beach has
let one into her confidence. Highly enjoyable, fascinating,
personal--and ultimately thrilling." -- M. Allen Greenbaum
"These memoirs by Sylvia Beach--originally
published in the 1950s--are reprinted here exactly as published.
Ms. Beach became one of the most prominent Americans in Paris
during the twenties and thirties by opening a bookstore called
"Shakespeare & Company" (the title of this book).
But to refer to her as a "bookstore manager" misses the
point completely. Shakespeare & Company was a meeting place
for many of the literary luminaries living in Paris at the time,
including James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and F. Scott
Fitzgerald. Her personal account places the reader in the center
of their lives in a way no biographer looking back eighty years
could dare to accomplish. Most notably, though, is Ms. Beach's
support of James Joyce. When Joyce's masterpiece
"Ulysses" looked as if it might not be published because
of the fear of censorship exhibited by some of the established
British and American publishing companies, Ms. Beach took it upon
herself to take Joyce's finished manuscript to a printer in Dijon,
and published the book herself, thereby ensuring that the world
would experience this novel as Joyce intended. In fact, she
exhibited admirable patience by allowing Joyce to correct proofs
innumerable times and to increase the size by one third after it
had been initially typeset by hand.
These memoirs are anecdotal and readable and the
story moves along quickly. The only criticism I have, however, is
that having read subsequent works, such as the Fitch book on
Sylvia Beach, there were a few occasions in this volume when the
editors back in the 1950s cut sections of her manuscript that
dealt with "controversial" subjects, such as the
relationship between Ms. Beach and the French bookseller Adrienne
Monnier. One would hope at some time a publisher might afford Ms.
Beach the opportunity she gave to James Joyce: to have the book
published as she intended." -- Jerry F.
