{"id":3799,"date":"2012-03-21T07:30:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/?p=3799"},"modified":"2017-06-27T14:06:54","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T21:06:54","slug":"full-circle-charmed-circle-and-shakespeare-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/21\/full-circle-charmed-circle-and-shakespeare-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Circle, Charmed Circle and Shakespeare & Company!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have often referred to the book CHARMED CIRCLE<\/strong> by James R. Mellow as it was the book that first got me interested in Gertrude Stein and her crowd.<\/p>\n

Now I’m so happy to announce that the contemporary incarnation of an iconic institution that played a pivotal role in the lives of many members of Stein’s Charmed Circle \u00a0is now selling copies of my book GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM (GAAAFAT<\/strong>.*)<\/p>\n

[*not to be confused with what many a gay man is trying to lose at Gold’s Gym!]<\/p>\n

That institution is Shakespeare and Company in Paris! The original bookstore sold\u00a0and championed the works of Stein, Joyce, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald among many others. \u00a0Its modern counterpart has continued the tradition for more than sixty years.<\/p>\n

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James Joyce, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier in the original Shakespeare & Co., 1920<\/p><\/div>\n

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The current Shakespeare and Company at 37, rue B\u00fbcherie, one of the Parisian landmarks included in Woody Allen’s hit movie “Midnight in Paris.”<\/p><\/div>\n

I must confess that copies of the book are already at another Shakespeare & Co., the beautiful, little English-language book shop in Vienna located on the poetically named street, Sterngasse (“star way<\/em>“), which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. But having copies of the books in Paris within a catapult’s boulder throw from Notre Dame is such a thrill.<\/p>\n

Not to mention that were Fritz and Tom to turn around in the illustration in the book in which they are on Notre Dame’s tower (within the watchful glare of a gargoyle), they would have a direct view across the Seine to where the current Shakespeare and Co. bookstore has been located since 1951. (The bookstore, founded by George Whitman was originally named Le Mistral, but was renamed in 1964 as a tribute to Sylvia Beach who died that year.)<\/p>\n

Whitman died in December of last year at the age of 98.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Born in Baltimore, Sylvia Beach moved to Paris in the last years of\u00a0 WWI and \u00a0opened Shakespeare and Company at 8, Rue Dupuytren \u00a0in 1919.\u00a0 Two years later it moved to its famous location at 12, Rue de l’Od\u00e9on. The shop was a combination English-language bookstore and lending library replicating the French version of the store that had been started by Adrienne Monnier who would become Sylvia\u2019s life partner . Gertrude and Alice were among the first holders of \u201clibrary cards\u201d. \u00a0In her autobiography, published in 1959 Beach recalls the \u201cTwo Customers from Rue de Fleurus\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cNot long after I opened my bookshop, two women came walking down rue Dupuytre. \u00a0One of them, with a very fine face, was stout,wore a long robe, and on her head, a most becoming top of a basket.\u00a0 She was accompanied by a slim, dark, whimsical woman: she reminded me of a gypsy.\u00a0 They were Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026Gertrude subscribed to my lending library, but complained that there were no amusing books in it.\u00a0 Where, she asked indignantly, were those American masterpieces The Trail of the Lonesome Pine <\/strong>and The Girl of the Limberlost<\/strong>?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026To make up for her unjust criticism of Shakespeare and Company, she bestowed several of her works on us: quite rare items such as Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia<\/strong> and that thing with the terrifying title, Have They Attacked Mary: He giggled:A Political Caricature.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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A moment of intimate gossip between Sylvia Beach and Alice in Paris, 1959<\/p><\/div>\n

Another connection between GAAAFAT <\/strong>and Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare and Co. is Joyce\u2019s book ULYSSES<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jane Heap \u00a0and Margaret Anderson, the guardians of Fritz and Tom, serialized the Joyce book in The Little Review<\/em> \u00a0from 1918-1921. Publication of the book was halted when the U.S. government considered the material in the last installment obscene: it contained a masturbation scene.<\/p>\n

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Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap<\/p><\/div>\n

Heap and Anderson were tried and a portion of the book was declared obscene. \u00a0They were fined $50 each. \u00a0Sylvia Beach published ULYSSES<\/strong> in 1922, but it was banned in the U.S. until 1934 when it was judged \u201cnot pornographic, so it could not be obscene!\u201d Only 1000 copies were printed and are among the most prized books by collectors of 20th<\/sup> century first editions.<\/p>\n

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The amusing book at Shakespeare and Company, Paris 2012<\/p><\/div>Well, now that copies of\u00a0GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM<\/strong>\u00a0 are at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, let\u2019s hope that were Gertrude Stein to stop by today, she would be as pleased as punch to find that\u00a0<\/strong>amusing book there, a few shelves away from the American masterpieces by members of her Charmed Circle!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have often referred to the book CHARMED CIRCLE by James R. Mellow as it was the book that first got me interested in Gertrude Stein and her crowd. Now I’m so happy to announce that the contemporary incarnation of an iconic institution that played a pivotal role in the lives of many members of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[261,15,259,86,89,109,143,256,257,258,260,254],"class_list":["post-3799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historic-facts","category-news","tag-adrienne-monnier","tag-alice-b-toklas","tag-charmed-circle-by-james-r-mellow","tag-gertrude-and-alice-and-fritz-and-tom","tag-gertrude-stein","tag-jane-heap","tag-margaret-anderson","tag-shakespeare-and-company-paris","tag-shakespeare-and-company-vienna","tag-sylvia-beach","tag-the-little-review","tag-ulysses"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3799"}],"version-history":[{"count":104,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5705,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions\/5705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}