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Frederic Dennis Papers on Sylvia Beach
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Frederic Dennis was the nephew of Sylvia Beach, the founder and owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. His mother, Holly Beach Dennis, was the oldest sister of Sylvia Beach.
This collection consists of selected papers of Frederic Dennis regarding Sylvia Beach, including various letters from Sylvia, as well as the correspondence of her family including her sister Holly and her father; a large collection of photographs that range from Beach family photograph albums and childhood photographs of the Beach sisters to images of Shakespeare and Company and photographs of some of the more famous literary associates of Sylvia Beach, such as James Joyce and Ezra Pound; a group of letters and postcards from Beach scholar Noël Riley Fitch regarding the Beach family; and various newsclippings and other assorted miscellany.
Gift of Lloyd Mills in 2016 (AM 2017-55) and 2017 (AM 2017-130)(AM 2017-158).
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
This collection was processed by Chloe Pfendler in November 2016. Finding aid written by Chloe Pfendler in November 2016. Finding aid updated by Kelly Bolding in March 2017. Finding aid updated again by Chloe Pfendler in July 2017.
Nothing was removed from the collection during 2016-2017 processing.
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Author
- Chloe Pfendler; Kelly Bolding
- Finding Aid Date
- 2016
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
Holly Beach was born Mary Hollingsworth Morris Beach on June 17, 1884, in New Jersey. She was the eldest daughter of Sylvester Woodbridge Beach (an American Presbyterian minister) and Eleanor (Orbison) Beach and the older sister of Sylvia Beach. She married Frederic James Dennis on January 21, 1929.
Physical Description1 folder
Noël Riley Fitch was born on December 24, 1937, in New Haven, Connecticut, and educated at Northwest Nazarene College (B.A. 1959) and Washington State University (M.A. 1965 and Ph.D. 1969). She was a professor of literature from 1971 to1987, and chair of the department of literature and modern languages from 1982 to 1985 at Point Loma College. Currently Fitch lectures at both the University of Southern California and the American University of Paris. She has written several biographies of influential women and is a frequent contributor of articles to journals and periodicals. Most of Fitch's writings reflect her fascination with American expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, and include the following: Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties(1983), Literary Cafés of Paris(1989), Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide for the Literary Traveler(1990), and Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin(1993). Her most recent work is Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child(1997).
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Includes one letter from the former president of Princeton University, Francis L. Patton.
Physical Description1 folder
Includes one letter from Sylvia to her father (dated July 18 1930) in which she discusses James Joyce and his vision problems.
Beach, SylviaBorn in Baltimore, Maryland in 1887, Sylvia Beach was the second of three daughters of Eleanor Orbison Beach and the Reverend Sylvester Woodbridge Beach (Princeton Class of 1876), a pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton. She is best known for running the bookstore and lending library Shakespeare & Company and for publishing James Joyce's Ulysses .
With the help of Adrienne Monnier, owner of the bookshop La Maison des Amis des Livres, Beach opened Shakespeare & Company at at 8, Rue Dupuytren in Paris in 1919 as a bookshop, lending library, and occasional publisher specializing in English and American literature. In 1922 the shop moved to 12, Rue de l'Odéon, across the street from Monnier's establishment, where it remained until its closing in 1940. During two decades, Shakespeare & Company served as a meeting point for expatriate writers and American visitors to Paris. Beach was interned for six months during World War II, but although she managed to keep her inventory hidden in a vacant apartment nearby, she did not re-open the shop after the war.
Sylvia Beach chronicled her experiences with Shakespeare & Company and life in Paris between the wars in a memoir of the same title, Shakespeare and Company , which was published in 1956. Towards the end of her life, she was widely honored for her publication of Ulysses and her support of aspiring writers during the 1920s. She remained in Paris until her death in 1962. Her ashes were buried in the Beach family plot in Princeton, NJ.
Physical Description1 folder
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5 boxes
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Includes photographs taken by photographers Berenice Abbott and Henri Martinie.
Physical Description1 box