Adrienne Monnier's bookshop and lending library — the French half of the rue de l'Odéon, where Ulysses was read aloud to Paris before it was a book.
Adrienne Monnier opened her shop on 15 November 1915, in the middle of the war, at twenty-three — one of the first women in France to found a bookshop of her own. The name she chose, La Maison des Amis des Livres, said exactly what she meant: not a store but a house of friends, run on a subscription lending library so that readers who could not buy books could still read them. She sold and lent the moderns — and she made the two rooms a salon, with readings and conversation that pulled in the whole of French letters, Gide and Valéry and Larbaud among the faithful.
In 1917 an American in Paris named Sylvia Beach walked in, and the shop acquired its transatlantic half. When Beach opened Shakespeare and Company — and in 1921 moved it to No. 12, directly across the street — the rue de l'Odéon became a single institution with two doors, French literature on one side and English on the other, run by two women who were partners in work and in life. Larbaud, who lived around the corner, named the country 'Odéonia.'
The shop's great night came on 7 December 1921. Some two hundred and fifty people packed the two rooms — twice what the program allowed — to hear Valery Larbaud lecture on an unpublished Irish novel called Ulysses and read translated passages aloud, to loud applause, with Joyce himself in the room. The book itself appeared eight weeks later from Beach's shop across the street. Monnier kept going where the séance pointed: her review Le Navire d'Argent (1925–26) printed Prufrock in French — translated by Monnier and Beach themselves — and gave Hemingway his first appearance in the language; in 1929 she published the French Ulysse from the shop. She closed the house in 1951, after thirty-six years on the street she and Beach had made the address of two literatures.
Monnier opens the shop on 15 November — a lending library and bookshop in wartime Paris.
Sylvia Beach walks in; the friendship and partnership of the rue de l'Odéon begins.
Beach moves Shakespeare and Company to No. 12 across the street; on 7 December, Larbaud's séance introduces Ulysses to Paris from Monnier's two rooms.
Le Navire d'Argent — twelve issues, Prufrock in French, and Hemingway's first appearance in the language.
Publishes the French translation of Ulysses — Ulysse — from the shop.
Monnier closes the house after thirty-six years.
Worked here · 1915–1951
Monnier founded the shop on 15 November 1915, at twenty-three — one of the first women in France to open a bookshop of her own — and ran it for thirty-six years, until she closed the house in 1951.
Hosted gatherings here · 1915–1951
The shop doubled as the salon of French letters — readings and gatherings that drew Gide, Valéry, and Larbaud, and on 7 December 1921 the séance at which Larbaud introduced Ulysses to some 250 listeners, Joyce among them.
Frequented by · 1917
Beach first walked into Monnier's shop in 1917; from 1921 her own shop faced it from No. 12, and the two doors ran as one street-wide institution for two decades.
Frequented by · 1921
Joyce was in the room on 7 December 1921 when Larbaud read Ulysses to the packed shop, and remained part of the rue de l'Odéon circle; Monnier published the French Ulysse from the shop in 1929.
Monnier founded the shop on 15 November 1915, at twenty-three — one of the first women in France to open a bookshop of her own — and ran it for thirty-six years, until she closed the house in 1951. The shop doubled as the salon of French letters — readings and gatherings that drew Gide, Valéry, and Larbaud, and on 7 December 1921 the séance at which Larbaud introduced Ulysses to some 250 listeners, Joyce among them.
Sylvia Beach's original bookshop and lending library — Ernest Hemingway's home away from home, and where James Joyce's Ulysses was first published. The shop closed in 1941; the current Shakespeare and Company is a successor at a different address.
Visit the place
Where Shakespeare and Company began: the tiny shop Sylvia Beach opened on 19 November 1919, two years before the move to the rue de l'Odéon.
Visit the place
Richard Wright's Paris address for eleven years — the apartment where he wrote the books of his exile, marked since 1992 by a marble plaque.
Visit the place
The café below the Senate that served as the unofficial headquarters of Black American writers in postwar Paris, with Richard Wright at the center and James Baldwin among the regulars.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
