Saturday, January 28, 2012

Shakespeare & Company-Paris, France Picture of the Week

(Monnier, Unknown, Beach & Ernest Heminway)

**Reposted from earlier 2012**

With my interest peaked by the new course I am taking about Paris in the 1920's, I give you the original Shakespeare & Company Bookstore on Paris's Left Bank!   Opened by Sylvia Beach on 17 November 1919 at 8 rue Dupuytren, before moving to larger premises at 12 rue de l'Odéon in the 6th arrondissement in 1922.  During the 1920s, it was a gathering place for writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Ford Madox Ford.[1] It closed in 1941 during the German occupation of Paris and never re-opened.

Sylvia Beach was an American ex-patriot that helped other ex-pats achieve their artistic ambitions.  Where other bookstores did not want the likes of the poor lingering about, they found safe haven in her shoppe, where they ate and drank cheaply, and she lent them books for free.   She single-handedly funded the publishing of Ulysses, by James Joyce, when all other English and American publishers refused to do so, because of it's content. In fact, she went broke doing so and had to close the doors of the store to fund the last expense of the book.

(Here is a link to a very sweet & fun blog about Sylvia Beach and Paris :)  http://leblog1815.blogspot.com/2011/03/sylvia-beach.html

Another bookstore  "Le Mistral" was opened in Paris by George Whitman, and in Sylvia Beach's honor, he renamed it in 1964 to "Shakespeare & Company".  It is located at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, in the 5th arrondissement.  You may have seen this recently in Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris.    


Today, this is a true destination point in Paris, with visitors coming from all around the globe to see where the creators of classic literature of the modern era dreamt.  There is nothing like a good cup of French Java and the sweet smell of the Seine to set you right back to the ethereal desires of the 1920's...

Oh...If only Paris did not exist, I could feel more settled in my own life...

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