Bee Time Vine and other Pieces [1913-1927].

STEIN, Gertrude. [Alice B. Toklas] Introduction by Virgil Thomson.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 135240

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.

First edition of volume three of the Yale edition of Stein’s unpublished writings, collected under the general editorship of Carl Van Vechten. Octavo, original boards. Presentation copy, inscribed by Stein’s partner Alice B. Toklas on the front free endpaper, “A peace offering to dear Elizabeth with love from Alice Paris 4 – VI – 54.” The recipient, Elizabeth Miriam Squire Sprigge was an English biographer and longtime nemesis of both Stein and Toklas and one of Stein’s harshest critics. In several letters to close personal friends following Stein’s death, Toklas expressed her disdain towards Sprigge, on one occasion in particular when she asserted to Sylvia Beach that Toklas was surely the true writer of Stein’s work (Toklas, Staying on Alone). Toklas sent the first edition of the posthumous work to Sprigge as a sort of peace offering in the midst of the feuding, however, she late rescinded all kind gestures with the 1957 publication of Sprigge’s Gertrude Stein: Her Life and Work which proved to be contentious, “vulgar and mistaken” according to Toklas. Laid in is a photograph of Stein’s grave and a sealed envelope containing “horse hair from sofa rue Christine [Stein’s home]” and “thorns from rose bush at Bellingen.” Near fine in a very good dust jacket.

"The present volume has in it landscape and love poetry and much mention of people and a great deal about the War, the first World War" (Virgil Thompson, introduction. Included are poems, dialogues, descriptions, landscapes, abstractions, comments on people and incidents, poetic and naturalistic recountings of daily life in Spain, Paris, Nimes, and other places.