Shakespeare and Company In 1919 Sylvia Beach "opened an American bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare and Company. During the following two decades it became practically a clearing house for writers of this vital post-1918 period".-San Francisco Chronicle. "[Miss Beach's] reminiscences are literally an index of everybody in the twenties, and she knew them all".-Janet Flanner, New Yorker. Introduction by James Laughlin. Full description