How to Write.

STEIN, Gertrude.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 90445

Paris: Plain Edition, 1931.

First edition of Stein’s experimental work on the craft of writing. Small octavo, original half cloth and boards, paper spine label. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “To Arthur from Gertrude Stein.” In very good condition.

Written in Stein's typical experimental style, How to Write embodies the novelist's unique approach to writing including her dislike of punctuation (particularly the comma), search for rhythm and balance, use of repetition, and dismissal of the conventional significance of words. Stein's approach to writing is truly impossible to summarize, yet undertones of humor persist, borne out immediately by some of the chapter titles: “Saving the Sentence,” “Arthur a Grammar,” “Regular Regularly in Narrative,” and “Finally George a Vocabulary.”