Sylvia Beach’s Final Book

Abstract

After her retirement as a bookseller, Sylvia Beach continued to promote new books. This article tells the story of one of these books—the last to be recorded on the Shakespeare and Company lending library cards. In 1962, Beach gave a copy of Bryher’s memoir, The Heart to Artemis (1962), to Jean-Dominique Rey, a young French intellectual. The article argues that the gift demonstrates Beach’s efforts to ensure that the accomplishments of her circle of queer women would not be lost to history.