Its publication brought Joyce, Beach and Shakespeare and Company worldwide fame but almost dragged the bookshop under in the process. Not least because Joyce had a habit of helping himself to advances from the till.

Modernist mecca

The book’s appearance turned the store into a mecca for modernists and their readers. Eliot, Pound and McAlmon now sold as well, if not better, than James, Whitman and Conrad.

A flurry of innovative publishing took place in and around the store. Ford Maddox Ford’s arrival in Paris saw him begin work with Pound on the short-lived but influential transatlantic review. Championing works by US writers, it published work by ee cummings, Pound, Hemingway and McAlmon.

Monnier introduced their work to French-speaking readers in her own journal, Le Navire d’Argent, for which she and Beach translated Eliot. Having been given the French contract for Ulysses, she also published the first French translations in another small magazine, Commerce.

However, quarrels amongst the translators strained relations between their pair of them and Joyce. Matters then worsened considerably in 1932 when, despite having initiated a contract with Beach giving her worldwide rights to Ulysses, he then pressured her to sign away those rights, before entering into a contract with Random House.

“The world was his own,” Beach later sighed.

The loss of income from sales of Ulysses was in many ways offset by the absence of Joyce’s constant financial demands, but nevertheless the depression of the 1930s had a profound effect on Shakespeare and Company.

Loyal friends Gide and Valéry organised a friend’s group to support the store, gathering subscriptions and organising readings by the now-famous Eliot and Hemingway.