Though she was not one of his most frequent correspondents, it appears that whenever Hemingway passed through Paris he stopped in to visit and to sign a copy or two of whatever his latest work was for his friend. In the archives of the Sylvia Beach papers located in Special Collections at Princeton University's Firestone Library, we see the evidence of their friendship in the form of numerous inscribed books and photos as well as in his letters, which are included in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway. 'No one that I ever knew was nicer to me,' Hemingway recalls in MF. What is certainly true is Hemingway's deep affection for Beach. Perhaps all of these possibilities are true. Perhaps Hemingway liked to re-read old favorites perhaps he conflated his selections for artistic effect perhaps he misremembered. Lawrence Sons and Lovers,' War and Peace, and The Gambler and Other Stories-he would borrow the Turgenev again and again (in 1925, 1926, 1929) and check out the Gambler in 1927, as well as other titles by Lawrence, too.

Notably, existing records of his later borrowing history show that, of the books he names in MF as his very first selections- A Sportsman's Sketches by Turgenev, 'an early book of D.H.

Hemingway's reading list from these earliest days is presumably lost, though researchers at the Shakespeare and Company Project are piecing together the records of Hemingway's and others' reading habits.

The subscription was for two volumes, but in MF Hemingway writes that Beach let him make additional selections. On 28 December 1921, Beach would enter into her ledger a subscription for this endearing new customer. Beach's account of their first meeting is of an amiable Midwesterner pulling up his pant leg to show her his scars from his war wounds. Hemingway recalls that he was initially shy, but he seems to have gotten over his hesitation almost immediately. Hemingway and his wife Hadley had arrived in France on 20 December 1921, and within a week he was a regular at the shop. In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway would recall her lending library and bookstore Shakespeare and Company, located at 12 rue de l'Odéon, as 'a warm, cheerful place' that drew him in almost immediately. Happy Birthday to Sylvia Beach, born on this day in 1887!

Shakespeare and company by sylvia beach