Who was Sylvia Beach?
Sylvia Beach was the American bookseller who first published Ulysses, in Paris on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. Her shop, Shakespeare and Company, took on the book when no publisher in Britain or America would risk it.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. A note printed in the first edition, signed with Beach's initials.
The publisher asks the reader’s indulgence for typographical errors unavoidable in the exceptional circumstances.
What it means in plain English
Beach had never published a book. She raised subscriptions, chased printers in Dijon, and put up with endless proof corrections from Joyce.
She later gave up the rights to the book, which made Joyce rich and her poorer.
Literary context
She wrote a memoir, Shakespeare and Company (1959).
References
- Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company (1959)
- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (revised edition, 1982)
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Questions readers ask
When did Ulysses come out?
2 February 1922, in Paris.
Related terms
Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company was Sylvia Beach's English-language bookshop and lending library in Paris, at 12 rue de l'Odéon from 1921. It published Ulysses in 1922 and was a home for writers such as Hemingway. A later shop of the same name, opened in 1951, still trades by the Seine.
The 1922 first edition
Ulysses was first published in Paris on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday, by Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company. It was printed in Dijon in an edition of 1,000 copies, in a blue cover chosen to match the Greek flag.
Nora Barnacle
Nora Barnacle was James Joyce's partner and later his wife, a woman from Galway. Their first walk together, on 16 June 1904, is why Ulysses is set on that day. Her voice and letters are often seen in Molly Bloom's monologue.