James Joyce Archive [see description below for inventory].
Sylvia Beach
Personal material from Sylvia Beach, the godmother of literary modernism, and arguably the most important female publisher in the 20th century. She and her partner Adrienne Monnier hosted and supported the whole of ex-patriate Paris in Beach’s shop, Shakespeare and Company, where Beach published Joyce’s Ulysses.
1.
inscribed by Beach, its publisher
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Paris: Shakespeare & Co.
11th printing. A rare presentation copy by publisher Beach, inscribed: “for Mrs Robert Pearce, a souvenir of her visit to Shakespeare & Co. / Sylvia Beach / Paris, 32.2.34”
2. B
inscribed by Beach
Freund, Gisele. Vintage photograph. Paris: 1938.
4 ½ x 5 ½ inches.
Famous sitting of James Joyce, Sylvia Beach, and Adrienne Monnier at Shakespeare & Company. Inscribed by Beach in French: James Joyce avec ses deux editeurs … dans Shakespeare et Co.
3. C
Beach’s copies, with her ownership signature
i. Theodore Maynard. Carven from the Laurel Tree, Oxford: Blackwell, 1918.
Signed by Beach, Sylvia Beach, London, August 1919.
ii. Guide Illustré de Musée Céramique. Paris: 1909.
Signed by Beach, Sylvia Beach, Paris, 1911, August.
4. D
Scarce
Shakespeare & Company – Sylvia Beach – Bookshop and Lending Library
Uncommon pamphlet, similar in size and design to the famous 1922 Ulysses “Prospectus,” outlining “Terms for the Lending Library” (“Books may be exchanged everyday or kept two weeks”); “Extra Charges” (“Members are fined 0,10 a day for each book overdue”); and hours (“The Shop is Open Weekdays, Saturdays Included, From 9 to 12:30 and From 2 to 7”). On the verso: “On Shakespeare and Company’s Bookshelves will be found everything of interest in English Literature…”
5. E
Regarding Beach
Weaver, Harriet. Typed letter signed, to Lady Harmsworth, (wife of Desmond Harmsworth, painter, poet, and publisher of Joyce, as famously was Weaver), about Beach and about Lucia Joyce’s mental health. April, 1961.
Lucia Joyce had been institutionalized but was looked after by a cohort of her late father’s friends. Weaver writes in part: “Sylvia seems to keep up something of a correspondence with Lucia who, I think, enjoys writing letters, though they are not always very legible. … I think it must have been from Sylvia that Lucia got the idea you had proposed visiting her… I have a letter this morning reporting about her and Mr. Budgen’s visit on Tuesday. Moulton Park House is late Victorian and much smaller than St. Andrew’s so that there is more a sense of locked doors and they could sympathise with Lucia’s feeling of imprisonment.” Signed by Weaver in blue ink, with three corrections in her hand.
6.
inscribed by Beach
Les Annees Vingt: Les Ecrivains Americains A Paris, 1920 – 1930. Paris: 1959. 8vo.; wrappers; glassine.
First edition of an important book representing a catalogue of writers in the exposition by that name at Le Centre Culturel American. With text by Beach that would appear in her Shakespeare And Company. With photographs. An important presentation copy, inscribed by Beach: For Jack and Marthiel, with Sylvia’s love. Martheil and Jackson Mathews, close friends of Beach late in life, edited the famous 1955 translation into English of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil. In addition, they edited the memorial book for Beach (see next item).
7.
Honoring Beach
Leon Edel’s copy
Sylvia Beach, 1887-1962. Edited by Jackson and Mathiel Mathews. Paris: Mercure de France, 1963.
A selection of “hommages” by writers to the late Beach, including T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Bryher, and Jackson Mathews himself (see previous item), a poem by James Joyce, letters from friends, including Hemingway, Adrienne Monnier, and William Carlos Williams, as well as illustrations and photographs.
This copy is from the library of early Joyce critic (and Henry James biographer) Leon Edel, signed Leon Edel, 11 January 1964, with multiple notes and underscoring of p
Print Inquire
