Handselling the Moderns

Over at The Constant Conversation, Levi Stahl is blogging about the letters of Sylvia Beach, aka owner of Shakespeare & Co, publisher of Ulysses, etc.

Along those lines, the letter that has thus far stood out for me, a former bookseller, is a letter from sometime in 1940 about Shakespeare and Company. It’s an odd letter, addressed to Adrienne Monnier, who owned the French-language bookstore across the street and at that point had been Beach’s lover for years, but written with a casual formality that gives no hint of their intimacy–that in fact reads as if intended for publication. The letter’s charms, however, are sufficient to overcome any questions of tone. It is a response to a request from Monnier for advice on English-language writers, and after plumping for Shakespeare, Blake, Melville, and De Quincey, Beach moves the discussion into her store . . .

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