SOURCE: Cody, Morrill, and Hugh Ford. “Sylvia Beach.” In The Women of Montparnasse, pp. 19-32. New York: Cornwall Books, 1984.

In the following essay, Cody and Ford recount the life and work of Sylvia Beach, focusing on the history of Beach's bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.

The most remarkable characteristic of Montparnasse in the twenties was in my opinion, the way French, American, English, and Irish writers were drawn together to talk and to read each other's works. From this penetrating experience they undoubtedly learned more than they would have absorbed from any other comparable source. Largely responsible for this amalgam of ideas were two gifted women, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, who have never before been given full credit for their achievement.

When I returned to Paris in 1923, my wife, Frances, and I carried three letters of introduction given us by her friend, English Walling, a...