Morsels From the Reading Lists of 20th-Century Writers

As Literary Hub's Aaron Robertson informs us, lending library cards that once belonged to Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Claude Cahun, and Richard Aldington are but a few of the treasures unveiled by the Shakespeare and Company Project. With Shakespeare and Company proprietor, Sylvia Beach's archives as the source, Princeton University librarians, digital humanists, and students are mapping an ever-evolving, complex digital portrait of literary life in early 20th-century Paris. "It’s insanely cool," writes Robertson. "You’ll be able to learn [...] where they lived in Paris, how the reading material circulated over time, the notes booksellers recorded, and more." Let's take a glimpse at some of the project's initial findings:

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), Afro-Caribbean author and founder of the Négritude movement

Feb. 29th, 1936: The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes
Dec. 21st, 1937: Color, Countee Cullen
Jan. 5th, 1938: Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems, Claude McKay & Cane, Jean Toomer […]

James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish author and literary critic

Dec. 1920: Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
March 3rd, 1923: Ireland: Its Myths and Legends, Joseph Mary Flood
July 11th, 1925: Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, Frank Harris […]

Louis Aragon (1897-1982), a leading French surrealist poet

Though the exact year isn’t known, the two books Aragon is recorded as having borrowed are Joyce’s Exiles and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. […]

Learn more at Literary Hub and at the Shakespeare and Company Project.