During the 1920’s, Paris was the center of modernist literature and a hub for American expatriates. The expatriate literary community was formed in Sylvia Beach’s bookshop called ‘Shakespeare and Company’ (Penelope, p.2). When it’s doors opened on November 17,1919, the bookshop became a focal point of rendezvous for artists. As the bookshop became more successful, it gained more American Expatriates as loyal customers, who eventually formed “The Lost Generation” group; referring to the Americans who settled in Paris after escaping the suppression of the United States post First World War (Durham, p.84).
The new subculture created at ‘Shakespeare and Company’ brought along the development of small publishing houses. These publishing houses were responsible for the issuing of important modernist works by Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway and many other members of the “Lost Generation”. One of the most important works published under Beach’s patronage is James Joyce’s magnum opus “Ulysses”, which ultimately ignited her fame as well as her bookshop’s (Leon, p.107). In 1921, “Ulysses”, was condemned for indecency when “The Little Review” attempted to publish it (Ford, p.258), and since then, no other publisher tried to issue it except for Beach. Through ‘Shakespeare and Company’, Beach worked continuously with the printing services of Maurice Darantière in Dijon, to issue what she thought was a work of “genius”. In the autumn of 1922, Beach succeeded in

publishing the first print edition of “Ulysses” under the imprint of ‘Shakespeare and Company’. In addition, Sylvia supported artists financially, as she did with Joyce at the expense of her bookshop, when she helped his family before profit was made from “Ulysses”. Sylvia notes in her memoire that the effort made to publish a work surrounded by controversies was also beneficial to the success of the author himself, as she notes: “Actually, I think the banning of Ulysses was a fortunate thing. So great a writer might otherwise have waited several hundred years to become famous except in the comparatively small group that will go in for a Ulysses” (Beach, p.189). The success of “Ulysses” accelerated when Valery Larbaud, a renowned French essayist and a customer of Beach, said that he was “raving mad over Ulysses” (Beach, p.57). It is through the bookshop ‘Shakespeare and Company’, that Larbaud met Joyce and announced that he was going to write do an article on Joyce for the “Nouvelle Revue Française” (Beach, p.58). In general, Beach’s publishing of “Ulysses”, branded the bookshop as a risky, adventurous and an independent business, all of which are attributes that emanated modernism. In particular, it stimulated people’s desire to evaluate for themselves the level of obscenity that “Ulysses” was once charged with. Overall, ‘Shakespeare and Company’ had “Ulysses” as a non-commercial but political and cultural movement (Karl, p.98-99).

Furthermore, being located on 12 Rue de L’Odéon, part of the West Bank of Paris, which was known as the conglomerate of expatriates and as the more artistic side of Paris. Joyce met Eugene Jolas, founder of the ‘Transition’ literary journal at ‘Shakespeare and Company’. Through Beach, Jolas established with Joyce a monthly publishing of his novel “Work in Progress” in the “Transition” under the imprint of
‘Shakespeare and Company’ (Walsh, p.19). The collaboration between Jolas and Joyce revolutionized the English language and as Beach stated: “Transition was to be an outlet for new words, new abstractions, new hieroglyphics, new symbols, new myths…”(Hansen, p.190). The “Transition” was an important literary journal in the twenties that spurred the movement of modernist literature as its policy encouraged American writers to express themselves freely.

‘Shakespeare and Company’ served their “best costumer” Ernest Hemingway, as a reading and lending library as well as a post office (Beach, p.77). Eventually as Sylvia Beach started aiding small American literary magazines, namely “This Quarter”, by getting them manuscripts and by being their main distributor, the bookshop became the starting point for expatriates’ success (Fitch, p.7). Beach also became the translator of some of the expatriates’ work; for instance, she was the first to publish a story of Hemingway in French; “The Undefeated”, which came out in her magazine “Le Navire d’Argent”. “The Undefeated” attracted a lot of readers of the “Le Navire d’Argent” especially Jonathan Cape, who later became Hemingway’s English publisher (Beach, p.82). Sylvia Beach’s influence on Hemingway’s ascension to fame is described by Gisele Freunch, when she stated: “Hemingway was unknown…And they became known through Adrienne and Sylvia.” (Weiss, p.49).