The founding of Shakespeare and Company would not have happened if Sylvia Beach had not met another female bookseller in Paris, Adrienne Monnier. Upon her return to Paris in 1917, Beach came across Monnier’s shop, La Maison des Amis des Livres. Beach recounts meeting Monnier in her memoir, writing “Adrienne knew at once that I was American. “I like America very much,” she said. I replied that I liked France very much” (Shakespeare and Company 12). This was the beginning of a lifelong partnership, business and personal. 

The two women never publicly confirmed it, but it is widely speculated and assumed that they were lovers. What is certain is that Beach learned much about being a bookseller in Paris from Monnier. Her initial plan was to set up a French bookstore under Monnier’s brand in America, but not having enough funds to run a bookstore in New York City, Beach decided to open an American bookstore in Paris instead. She wrote in her memoir that Monnier “was delighted” by the idea when she told her (Shakespeare and Company 15). Using her mother’s savings, Beach officially opened Shakespeare and Company in 1919. Her letters to her mother show that it took some convincing for her mother to agree to finance a shop in Paris rather than New York—but the bookstore did open, and became a literary hub for Parisians and Americans on holiday alike (The Letters of Sylvia Beach 76).

The original bookstore closed in 1941 under Nazi occupation, but after Beach’s death, bookseller renamed his bookstore Le Mistral to Shakespeare and Company to honor her. That bookstore still stands today and is visited a popular Parisian site for tourists and book lovers. Because of the success of anglophone bookstores like Beach’s, many other bookstores catering to English speakers have opened up in Paris, like The Abbey Bookshop (pictured below). The 1919 opening of Shakespeare Company made the purchase of English-language books much more popular and readily available in Paris. That alone is a massive legacy to leave behind.