Sylvia Woodbridge Beach, 1887-1962

Sylvia Woodbridge Beach was born in Baltimore, to Sylvester Beach, a Presbyterian pastor, and Eleanor Thomazine Orbison. In her youth, the family moved to Bridgewater, New Jersey. In 1901 she moved with her family to Paris where her father was appointed assistant minister of the American Church in Paris and director of the American student center.

In 1906 the family returned to New Jersey when her father became minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.

Sylvia made several trips back to Europe, and during the final years of World War I she was drawn back to Paris to study contemporary French literature. While in Paris, she met Adrienne Monnier’s, owner of a bookshop and lending library, a Parisienne literary salon. Sylvia regularly attended readings by leading French authors such as André Gide and Paul Valéry.

Enamoured of the literary life on the Left Bank, Sylvia dreamed of her own book shop, so with $3,000 which her mother gave her, and with Adrienne’s help, Sylvia opened Shakespeare and Company.

Shakespeare and Company quickly attracted both French and American readers and many aspiring writers attracted by Sylvia's hospitality and encouragement. In 1921 Shakespeare and Company moved to a larger space at 12 Rue de l’Odéon, across the street from Adrienne’s Maison des Amis des Livres. Included among the lumineriess who passed through Shakespeare & Company were James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Valery Larbaud, Thornton Wilder, André Gide, Leon-Paul Fargue, George Antheil, Robert McAlmon, Gertrude Stein, Stephen Benet, Aleister Crowley, John Quinn, Berenice Abbott, and Man Ray.

Shakespeare and Company gained worldwide noteriety in 1922 when it published James Joyce's Ulysses. This proved to be a costly move because Beach would later be financially stranded when Joyce signed on with another publisher, leaving Beach in debt with severe losses from Ulysses.

Shakespeare and Company hit difficult times during the Depression of the 1930s, and was supported by Beach's circle of wealthy friends. Shakespeare and Company remained open after the fall of Paris, but by the end of 1941 Sylvia Beach was forced to close, Sylvia herself was interned for six months, but kept her books hidden in a vacant apartment above the shop. The shop never re-opened.

In 1956, Beach wrote a memoir of Shakespeare and Company, detailing the cultural life of Paris between the wars. Beach remained in Paris until her death in 1962, and was buried in Princeton Cemetery. Her papers are archived at Princeton University.