Inauguration de la bibliothèque américaine de l'Université de Paris

« Books ! Books form America ! They have traveled all the way over the Ocean from where the sun sets behind the tower of the Woolworth Building to where the sun rises behind the spine of Notre-Dame. They bring us a whiff of the atmosphere of the New World, a pulse of its thought, a ray of its beauty. »


The rare first edition of the inaugural speeches for the American library at the Sorbonne, December 13, 1920.
One page of photographic portraits of the authors.

« Sartre affirmait que la grande révélation pour les lecteurs français de l'entre-deux guerres fut celle des romanciers américains, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Steinbeck. C'est au cours des mêmes années que l'histoire américaine fit sa percée dans les Universités françaises, tout en se limitant, à la différence du roman, à des cercles très étroits et spécialisés. Elle s'imposa dans un petit nombre d'institutions Collège de France, Sorbonne, Ecole des Hautes-Etudes... » ["Sartre claimed that the great revelation for French readers of the inter-war period was that of American novelists, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Steinbeck. It was during these same years that American history made its breakthrough in French Universities, while limiting itself, unlike the novel, to very narrow and specialized circles. It established itself in a small number of institutions: Collège de France, Sorbonne, Ecole des Hautes-Etudes..."] (Fohlen Claude. Les débuts de l'histoire américaine en France. In: Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines, N°13, février 1982. Historiens français des Etats-Unis. pp. 27-40.)
Founded the same year as the American Library in Paris, thanks to a donation from the Carnegie Foundation, the American Library, attached to that of the Sorbonne, marks the official beginning of American History studies in France: « Deux mille livres, choisis parmi les plus représentatifs et les meilleurs, dans les catégories de l'histoire, de la biographie et des mémoires, des documents originaux, de la géographie humaine, économique et sociale, de la religion et de la morale, de la pédagogie, du droit, et enfin de la littérature, offrent aux professeurs et aux étudiants les sources principales où ils peuvent puiser la connaissance exacte (...) de la nation américaine » ["Two thousand books, chosen from among the most representative and the best, in the categories of history, biography and memoirs, original documents, human, economic and social geography, religion and morals, pedagogy, law, and finally literature, offer professors and students the main sources from which they can draw exact knowledge (...) of the American nation"].
This important gift was originally intended to support Charles Cestre's efforts in his teaching of American civilization and to guarantee, after the First World War, Franco-American understanding and friendship: « The knowledge of America's historical, moral and literary record will be the best warrant that no misunderstanding creeps in between her and France » (Speech by Charles Cestre)
Published in a very small number of copies reserved for members attending the Inauguration Ceremony, this rare booklet honors American culture in France's most prestigious university, while at the same time and two streets from the Sorbonne, Sylvia Beach was welcoming in her Latin Quarter bookshop the writers of the Lost Generation who would revolutionize French and Anglo-Saxon literature.