“When we were very poor and very happy.” *

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), who was quite a gal. Daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she moved with her family to Paris in 1901 when her father was appointed the assistant minister of the American Church in Paris  and director of the American student center. The family moved back to New Jersey in 1906. Sylvia served with the Red Cross during WWI and never returned to the States.

Screen Shot 2019-03-13 at 10.16.59 AM.png

Sylvia is best known today as the owner/founder of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris and as the original publisher of Ulysses by James Joyce. (She wasn’t afraid to publish it.) Ernest Hemingway was a big fan of hers, and famously said that she was nicer to him than anyone he ever met.

Screen Shot 2019-03-13 at 10.45.00 AM.png

I wrote a paper about Sylvia Beach when I was in college. That was when my father told me that he had sat on Gertrude Stein’s lap as an infant–his way of saying his parents were a part of all that in Paris in the twenties. They probably hung out at Shakespeare and Company. He never elaborated because why would he do that? C’est la vie.

Anyway, in reading up on Sylvia, I was reminded that although Shakespeare and Company remained open after the Fall of Paris, Beach was forced to close by the end of 1941.  But she never left. Indeed, she was held for six months during WWII at Vittel, an internment camp for enemy aliens of the German Reich, until  Tudor Wilkinson managed to secure her release in February 1942. Wilkinson was an American  art collector and amateur art dealer, who was born and raised right here in St. Louis, Missouri! In gratitude for her release, Sylvia gave Wilkinson a first edition of Ulysses signed by Joyce.

When daughter #1 was in Paris a few years back, she made a pilgrimage to the second incarnation of Shakespeare and Company which I much appreciated. I probably have a photo of that occasion, but, of course, I can’t put my hands on it now.

Well, it may be time to dust off my copy of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company and re-read it. I will toast Sylvia tonight. I wish I had some French wine.

*Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast