Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties - Hardcover

Fitch, Noel Riley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393017133 ISBN 13: 9780393017137

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1983

Synopsis

Making use of the author's access to the Beach family papers, this account chronicles the literary circle that gathered at Beach's Paris book shop

About this title

Review

In 1917, Sylvia Beach walked into a Paris bookshop, where she met Adrienne Monnier, the woman who would become her life companion. In 1919, Beach opened her own English-language bookshop and lending library, Shakespeare and Company, which would become the cynosure of an entire literary movement. Literary expatriates were drawn to her shop, and Ernest Hemingway declared of Sylvia, "No one that I ever knew was nicer to me." But her most celebrated literary efforts are those she made on behalf of her literary idol, James Joyce, undertaking the publication of Ulysses. Noel Riley Fitch uses Beach as the focal point for a fascinating portrait of an artistic community filled with anecdote after anecdote. From the intellectual salons at Natalie Barney's residence--of which "William Carlos Williams would recall only the lesbian women dancing together"--to the seemingly constant presence of Ezra Pound, Fitch's account solidifies the importance of the time and place he so vividly re-creates. --Ron Hogan

From the Back Cover

The story of Sylvia Beach's love for Shakespeare and Company supplies the lifeblood of this book. 'An absorbing book, backed by an impressive amount of research. Working from the rich collection of Sylvia Beach's papers, Noel Fitch has written an objective story that corrects many of the errors and misjudgments to be found in other literary memoirs of those eventful years in Paris.'

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0393017133
• ISBN 13: 9780393017137
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 447