Sylvia Beach

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Sylvia Beach (actually Nancy Woodbridge Beach ; March 14, 1887 in Baltimore , Maryland - October 5, 1962 in Paris ), as a bookseller and publisher, was a central figure on the Parisian literary scene between the First and Second World Wars .

Life

12, rue de l'Odéon in 2004
Memorial plaque on rue de l'Odéon
Shakespeare and Company, Paris, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 2004

Beach was born to the Presbyterian pastor Sylvester Woodbridge Beach and his wife Eleanor Orbison. In 1901 the family moved to Paris for professional reasons . Beach felt at home in Paris and therefore lived there permanently since 1916, after having worked as a nurse for the Red Cross in Serbia during World War I.

Sylvia Beach opened the first English-language lending library and bookstore in Paris, Shakespeare and Company , in November 1919 , initially at 8 rue Dupuytren. The bookstore quickly became a meeting place, especially for Americans . In 1921 the shop moved to 12 Rue de l'Odéon, across from the French bookshop of her partner Adrienne Monnier .

Beach and Monnier were known to many greats of the Parisian literary and art scene, including DH Lawrence , Ernest Hemingway , Ezra Pound , TS Eliot , Francis Fergusson , Valery Larbaud , Thornton Wilder , André Gide , Léon-Paul Fargue , George Antheil , Robert McAlmon , Gertrude Stein , Stephen Vincent Benét , Aleister Crowley , John Quinn , Berenice Abbott , Gisèle Freund and Man Ray .

Sylvia Beach became famous when she published James Joyce 's novel Ulysses in 1922 , after the author had unsuccessfully tried to publish the book in an English-speaking country. The unfinished manuscript had been offered to Virginia and Leonard Woolf in April 1918 for publication by their publisher, Hogarth Press . They rejected the first chapters that were already available because they were too large for manual typesetting and couldn't find another printer because of the seemingly obscene content.

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the bookstore ran into economic difficulties and only survived thanks to the generosity of her circle of friends. Sylvia Beach was interned during the Second World War. In 1944 the business was symbolically liberated by Ernest Hemingway personally, but did not reopen. The Paris bookstore Le Mistral, opened in 1951 by the American George Whitman , elsewhere (Rue de la Bûcherie No. 37) has, however, been named Shakespeare & Company in Beach's honor since 1964 .

In 1956, Beach wrote her memories of the interwar years under the title Shakespeare and Company . The book contains many details about the cultural life in Paris at that time.

Beach lived in Paris until her death. She is buried in Princeton , New Jersey .

meaning

“Sylvia was like a bee that took care of the pollination between the writers. James Joyce, TS Eliot, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald and many others came to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore for more than friendly gatherings. For example, I know what I owe Scott Fitzgerald. But what many other writers owed each other remains Sylvia's secret. "

- André Chamson, writer

Works

  • Shakespeare and Company. A bookstore in Paris ("Shakespeare & Company"). 6th edition Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1996, ISBN 3-518-37323-4 (former title Meeting Point - A Bookshop in Paris ). .
  • Keri Walsh (Ed.): The letters of Sylvia Beach . University Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-231-14536-7 .

literature

  • Humphrey Carpenter: Geniuses together. American writers in Paris in the 1920s . Uwin Hyman, London 1987, ISBN 0-04-440067-5
  • Noel R. Fitch: Sylvia Beach. A biography in literary Paris. 1920-1940 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-38202-0
  • James Joyce: Letters to Sylvia Beach. 1921-1940 . Edited by Melissa Banta and Oscar A. Silvermann. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-518-40395-8
  • Adrienne Monnier: Notes from the Rue de l'Odéon. Writings 1917–1953 . Insel, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1995, ISBN 3-458-16692-0
  • Andrea Weiss: Paris was a woman. The women from the Left Bank. Djuna Barnes, Janet Flanner, Gertrude Stein & Co. New edition, Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 978-3-499-24224-3

Web links

Commons : Sylvia Beach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermione Lee : Virginia Woolf , p. 513.
  2. ^ Lyle Larsen: Stein and Hemingway: The story of a turbulent friendship. McFarland, February 15, 2011, p. 154 , accessed March 2, 2012 (English, Google Books ).
  3. ^ Paris and its artists - 1905–1930 . Documentary by Perry Miller Adato, 2010, 105 min. - P: Arte France.
personal data
SURNAME Beach, Sylvia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beach, Nancy Woodbridge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American bookseller and publisher in Paris
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH 5th October 1962
Place of death Paris