Adrienne Monnier

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French bookseller, writer, and publisher, and an influential figure in the modernist writing scene in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Monnier and expatriate bookseller and publisher Sylvia Beach became lovers and lived together for 36 years. On 15 November 1915, Monnier opened her bookshop and lending library, "La Maison des Amis des Livres" at 7 rue de l'Odéon, Paris VI. She was among the first women in France to found her own book store. Monnier, who had worked as a teacher and as a literary secretary, loved the world of literature and was determined to make bookselling her career. Monnier offered advice and encouragement to Beach when Beach founded an English language bookstore called Shakespeare and Company in 1919. During the 1920s, the shops owned by Beach and Monnier were located across from each other on the rue de l'Odéon in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Both bookstores became gathering places for French, British, and American writers. In June 1925, Monnier, with Beach's moral and literary support, launched a French language review, Le Navire d'Argent (The Silver Ship), with Jean Prévost as literary editor. Issues of the review included an early draft of part of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (Oct 1925); an abridged version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella, The Aviator, in the penultimate (April 1926) edition. Le Navire d'Argent also first introduced Ernest Hemingway in translation to French audiences. Although Beach closed her store during the German Occupation, Monnier remained open and continued to provide books and solace to Parisian readers. For ten years after the war Adrienne Monnier continued her work as an essayist, translator and bookseller. Plagued by ill health, Monnier was diagnosed in September 1954 with Ménière's disease, a disorder of the inner ear which affects balance and hearing. Further, she also suffered from delusions. On 19 June 1955, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Link to Wikipedia biography