It was January 1922 and Ernest Hemingway and his new bride Hadley Richardson had recently arrived in Paris. One of the first places Hemingway visited was the bookstore (and rental library) known as Shakespeare and Company on 12 Rue de l’Odeon. On the advice from Sherwood Anderson EH met with another American Sylvia Beach who had opened S&C in 1919. I always found it interesting what EH borrowed from Sylvia during that initial meeting – he had no money on him at the time and she said not to worry and that he could pay her back another time. The books that he borrowed that very first time were:
-A Sportsman’s Sketches, 2 volumes, by Turgenev
-Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
-War and Peace, Constance Garnett edition
-Gambler and Other Stories, Dostoyevski
