Gertrude Stein (Twentieth Century Classics)

"Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me," said Gertrude Stein.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is in fact her own autobiography, seen through the eyes of her friend, Alice B. Toklas. With occasional glimpses into her early life, it describes her years in Paris until 1932. At 27 rue de Fleurus, Gertrude Stein established a formidable literary and artistic salon, and this book provides a valuable record of her friendships with some of the world's foremost artists and writers--Picasso, Apollinaire, Matisse and Braque--her impressions of Paris during the First World War and then the post-war American "invasion"--Eliot, Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald--for whom Gertrude Stein became a guru.

A brilliant and original writer, Gertrude Stein was a major influence upon modern American prose. The Autobiography contains a great deal of her artistic philosophy and theories of writing. But, above all, it stands as the most articulate and entertaining "American in Paris" book ever written.