Call Number:

C0141

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 2 items
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English and French

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Jackson Mathews Collection of Sylvia Beach, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1921-1965 (inclusive)

Creator:

Mathews, Jackson.

Form:

Photographs.

Abstract:

Consists of letters and other material related to Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), the American proprietress of the Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, collected by Jackson Mathews (1907?-1978).

Jackson Mathews was a writer, translator, and editor. Born in Griffin, Georgia, in 1907, Mathews graduated from the University of Georgia in 1928 and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1947. His specialty was comparative literature, and he worked extensively with French texts. Mathews worked as a professor, translator, and Foreign Service officer, and he completed translations of Monsieur Teste (1947), My Theatre (1952), Flowers of Evil (1955), and Hypnos Waking (1956). In 1963, he completed Hommage à Sylvia Beach (Homage to Sylvia Beach) for the Mercure de France, during which time he collected correspondence, typescripts, and other miscellanea from Beach. Mathews died in 1978.

The collection consists of correspondence (1955-1962) by Sylvia Beach to Jackson Mathews and his wife, Marthiel; copies of letters to Beach from Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Adrienne Monnier, Andre Gide, and others; and correspondence of Mathews with others primarily regarding the "Hommage à Sylvia Beach," which he prepared in 1963 for the Mercure de France. These last materials include letters and typescripts containing remembrances of Beach by Malcolm Cowley, Allen Tate, Katherine Anne Porter, Archibald MacLeish. Furthermore, there is a small selection of miscellanea, including Beach's manuscript "Inturned," which describes her captivity by the Germans during World War II; an untitled manuscript by Yves Bonnefoy; material on Shakespeare and Company's library; material regarding the sale of James Joyce's papers to the University of Buffalo; and unpublished photographs of Beach and her friends in the Mediterranean (1961-1962).