The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

STEIN, Gertrude.

$2,250.00

Item Number: 145411

New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1933.

First edition, second printing of Gertrude Stein’s most famous work; one of the richest biographies ever written. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated from photographs. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “… November 20/34 Chicago.” Near fine in the rare original dust jacket which is in very good condition. Some loss to the spine and front panel of the dust jacket, costing most of the word “The” in the title, light rubbing to the rear panel of the dust jacket and jacket extremities, light toning to the jacket flaps.

"Largely to amuse herself, Gertrude Stein wrote The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1932, using as a sounding board her companion Miss Toklas, who had been with her for twenty-five years. The book is full of the most lucid and shapely anecdotes, told in a purer and more closely fitting prose... than even Gide or Hemingway have ever commanded" (Donald Sutherland). “Not only did the memoir make Toklas’s name famous, but it established a postmodernist rationale for autobiographical sophistication. Never intended to be factual, Stein’s story of life in Paris from 1900 through 1930 was told in Toklas’s wryly humorous voice. The genius of Stein’s ear for language allowed her to leave her own convoluted, hermetic style and write with the clarity and acerbity that Toklas was famous for among her friends. So accurate was Stein’s re-creation of Toklas’s speech that some readers were sure Toklas herself had written the book” (ANB). It was listed by Modern Library as one of the greatest English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.