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Sylvia Woodbridge Beach

By Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com

Dates: March 14, 1887 - October 5, 1962

Occupation: bookseller, publisher, memoir writer

About Sylvia Woodbridge Beach: Born in Baltimore, Sylvia Woodbridge Beach moved with her family to Paris where her father was assigned as a Presbyterian minister.

As owner of the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris, 1919-1941, Sylvia Beach hosted French students and British and America authors, including Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Audré Gide, and Paul Valéry.

Sylvia Woodbridge Beach published James Joyce's Ulysses when it was outlawed as obscene in England and the United States.

The Nazis closed her bookstore when they occupied France, and Beach was briefly interned by the Germans in 1943. She published her memoirs in 1959 as Shakespeare and Company.

Places: Baltimore, Maryland, United States; Paris, France.
Organizational and Religious Associations: Shakespeare & Company Bookstore; Presbyterian
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