Haunt · 1924
Shakespeare and Company (1921-1941)
Address · 12, rue de l'Odéon, 75006 Paris
Metro · Odéon (4, 10)
Today · Gone. Bookshop closed in 1941; a plaque on the building.
The story
Rue de l'Odéon was laid out from 1780, following the letters patent of 1779 that created the Théâtre-Français of the faubourg Saint-Germain, today's Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe; it was first called rue du Théâtre-Français. Camille Desmoulins lived there until his arrest in 1794. It was home to Thomas Paine at No. 10 between 1797 and 1802 and, from 1915, to Adrienne Monnier's bookshop, La Maison des amis des livres, at No. 7.
Directly opposite, at No. 12, the American Sylvia Beach (1887-1962) moved Shakespeare and Company, the English-language bookshop and lending library she had opened on 19 November 1919 on rue Dupuytren. The date of the move varies between sources: 1921 in the Wikipedia article on the bookshop, 1922 in the one on the street. Hemingway, Pound, Stein and Fitzgerald frequented the shop, which Joyce used as his office; it was under this imprint that Ulysses appeared in 1922. The composer George Antheil lodged upstairs.
Crowley arrived in Paris from Nice on 5 January 1924 and saw Sylvia Beach as early as the 7th to talk to her about publishing his Confessions. The next day, alongside the entry for a day he considered particularly auspicious, his diary contains a draft of the terms he intended to propose: the matter to be kept secret, use of the shop's customer list to distribute numbered prospectuses, a 5% commission for the bookseller on each paid subscription form, and no other responsibility for her. Nothing indicates that she accepted. A few days later he settled at the Hôtel de Blois, rue Vavin, where Norman Mudd joined him from Tunis on 22 January.
In her memoirs published in 1956, Sylvia Beach recalls a brief and unpleasant encounter, without dating or locating it precisely: a blonde companion of Crowley's is said to have presented her with a prospectus and a contract already drawn up and awaiting only her signature, which alarmed her. The proportions she cites differ from those noted by Crowley. The exact location of the 7 January meeting is therefore not established, although the bookshop, where she received authors in search of a publisher every day, is the most likely setting.
Shakespeare and Company closed in December 1941, under the Occupation; Sylvia Beach was interned for six months and never reopened the shop. From the street, one now sees the building at No. 12, marked by a commemorative plaque, opposite Adrienne Monnier's former address.
To be checked · Exact meeting place not recorded.