Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation

Noel Riley Fitch. First U.S. edition (stated), first printing. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1983. Both unclipped dust jacket, in a mylar protective wrapper, and hardcover are in Near Fine condition. The dust jacket was designed by Rus Anderson. No writing or markings in the book, 447 pp.

"Fitch has created a literary chronicle of the most creative decades of the twentieth century as seen through the life and literary engagements of bookshop owner Sylvia Beach. 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, like Ernest Hemingway, 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."

"Courageous, hardworking, self-sacrificing, determined, witty, and charming, Silvia Beach built her famous Shakespeare and Company Bookshop into a veritable hub of international literature..."
~Carlos Baker

We can see why Hemingway loved it there!

"An absorbing book, backed by an impressive amount of research." ~Malcolm Cowley