The hub for france-american exchange

Both bookshops have a long history of providing hospitality and encouragement to aspiring and established writers, and both became literary institutions in their own right, renowned both in Paris and world-wide. Beach and Whitman were each instrumental in bringing Anglophone literature to France and in creating environments which nurtured and inspired writers.

Sylvia Beach, born in 1887 in Maryland.  She moved to Paris in 1901 when her father was appointmented assistant minister of the American Church and director of the American Student Center. Living in Paris for three years, she fell in love with the Parisian way of life, and even when the family moved back to the States, Beach returned frequently.  During the last years of  World War I, she moved to Paris to study  contemporary French literature.

Beach came across Adrienne Monnier’s bookshop and lending library, La Maison des Amis des Livres, on the rue de l’Odéon, and was warmly welcomed by the owner, who proclaimed, “I like Americans very much.”  La Maison des Amis des Livres held readings by authors esteemed contemporary French authors, such as André Gide and Paul Valéry. The authors spent much time at the bookshop and shared close friendships with Monnier. Inspired by a bookshop that also functioned as a cultural center, Beach dreamed of starting her own bookshop in New York that would offer contemporary French writing to American readers. As it turned out, Beach became instrumental in founding an institution which would bring contemporary Anglophone literature to France. She set up shop in Paris, across the street from Monnier's shop.

Shakespeare & Company opened in 1919, and quickly attracted both French and American readers, as well as many aspiring writers to whom Beach offered hospitality, encouragement, and books from her personal collection. American and other Anglophone writers began to migrate to Paris after the war, a group which became known as the “Lost Generation,” and included James Joyce, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, Man Ray, and Ernest Hemingway, whom nobody disputed was the shop’s self-titled “best customer.”

Shakespeare & Company gained considerable recognition upon publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922. The book had been banned in the United States and the United Kingdom due to what Beach recognized as its “bold,” “offensive,” and “obscene” content. She published the book, despite being nearly bankrupt herself, in order to try to support a writer whom she admired and a friend she cared about. Her decision had not only to do with the quality of the book but also her respect for the man: “human beings were more to me than works of art,” Beach wrote in her book Shakespeare & Company.

Shakespeare & Company experienced difficulty throughout the Great Depression, but it managed to keep afloat thanks to the generosity of friends. In 1936, when Beach was nearly forced to close her shop, André Gide organized a group of writers into a club called Friends of Shakespeare & Company. Subscribers paid 200 francs a year to attend readings at Shakespeare & Company, and thus the shop was saved. The renown of the French and American authors that participated in the shop’s readings brought considerable attention to the store, and after two years, Shakespeare & Company was “so glorious with all these famous writers and all the press we received that we began to do very well in business.”  Shakespeare and Company remained open after the fall of Paris in World War II, but by the end of 1941, Sylvia Beach was forced to close the shop.

Sylvia Beach was interned for six months during World War II, but she kept her books hidden in a vacant apartment upstairs at 12, rue de l'Odeon. Some of these books are now a part of George Whitman’s collection, which are available to read – but not borrow – in the reading library on the second floor of the Shakespeare & Company that now stands across from Notre Dame at 37, rue de la Bûcherie.

George Whitman was another American in Paris.  A native of Salem, Massachusetts, he stayed on after the war and enrolled in French classes at the Sorbonne. During his studies, he developed a large collection of English books and used his small room as an informal library: He lent books out to friends and strangers, and traded old books for new. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Whitman’s good friend, suggested that Whitman start a proper bookstore in Paris. In 1951, Whitman did just that.  Acquiring a small apartment just opposite Notre Dame, he converted it into the Shakespeare & Company storefront that is still found there today. Originally called Le Mistral, Whitman took the name Shakespeare & Company upon Beach’s death. Whereas Beach had the Lost Generation, Whitman had the Beats. Writers such as Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Alan Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac found shelter and friendship at Whitman’s Shakespeare & Company.

Whitman elaborated upon Beach’s model of hospitality: He welcomed young writers to sleep in his shop, and his daughter, Sylvia B. Whitman, who now runs the shop, continues this program. Young writers known as “Tumbleweeds” stay in the shop in exchange for a few hours of work every day; they are also asked to read a book a day and to work on their writing. The Shakespeare & Company website states that some 50,000 people have slept in the bookshop. Whitman has been known to say that he created a “socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore.”

Sylvia Beach died in 1962 and is buried in the Princeton Cemetery. George Whitman turned 96 in December of 2009. Shakespeare & Company is still a literary nexus: There are readings held in the bookshop every Monday, and a biennial literary festival welcoming celebrated authors from all over the world – Paul Auster, Alain de Boton, Ian McEwan, Marjane Satrapi, Jung Chang, and Alistair Horne, among them – is held in the store and the park nearby. Both incarnations of Shakespeare & Company grew from bookstores into international literary institutions and have been instrumental in bringing Anglophone literature and culture to Paris.