Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein [Paperback]

Gertrude Stein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 1990

"This collection, a retrospective exhibit of the work of a woman who created a unique place for herself in the world of letters, contains a sample of practically every period and every manner in Gertrude Stein's career. It includes The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in its entirety; selected passages from The Making of Americans; "Melanctha"from Three Lives; portraits of the painters Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso; Tender Buttons; the opera Four Saints in Three Acts; and poem, plays, lectures, articles, sketches, and a generous portion of her famous book on the Occupation of France, Wars I Have Seen.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"This collection, a retrospective exhibit of the work of a woman who created a unique place for herself in the world of letters, contains a sample of practically every period and every manner in Gertrude Stein's career. It includes The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in its entirety; selected passages from The Making of Americans; "Melanctha"from Three Lives; portraits of the painters Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso; Tender Buttons; the opera Four Saints in Three Acts; and poem, plays, lectures, articles, sketches, and a generous portion of her famous book on the Occupation of France, Wars I Have Seen.

Product Details

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 17, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679724648
• ISBN-13: 978-0679724643
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well compiled offering of a diverse writer, June 29, 2000

By 

D. Swanson (Mount Desert, Maine, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (Paperback)

Normally I am hesitant to give a book 5 stars, I try to save this rating for when I really really really am impressed by it, and if this hadn't been a compilation of Stein's writing, I might not have given it this rating. It is really Carl Van Vechten that deserves the stars, Stein's writing is a bit much to digest or even swallow a lot of times, but Van Vechten gives an insightful foreword and has selected a diverse array of this colorful and eccentric author's writing. I had never read any of her work before I happened upon this edition and it proved insightful to be able to compare Tender Buttons and The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas together side by side, as this edition allows you to do. A good way to gain a feel for the work of Gertrude Stein

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy this instead of Alice . B. Toklas autobio and you're set for Stein. Set for life one sets. Really set and setting one sets., June 25, 2005

By 

Peter Gillette (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (Paperback)

This is really a terrific compilation--I'm speaking as a cheap undergradaute, here--because it really is all the Stein that most people will need, unless one gets into the whole Lost Generation phase (you know, getting grants to research and inspect Joyce and Hemingway's bar tabs, trying to find the last living Picasso slept with, that sort of thing) and then the books will suffice. Today is Saturday. Saturday in the afternoon winds blow. Repeating more and more and repeating the same thing this volume stricken of commas does its job. Nouns still in the way. The thing is, very few people (I hope not to sound ignorant, only honest) are going to finish "The Making of the Americans" or "Tender Buttons" (although, I must say, coming back to "Tender Buttons" after reading it, or trying to, two years ago, it makes more and more "sense," in a sense, every time I come across it the few times I have chosen it to come across me) and so it is good to have one volume with these and Melanctha and the Toklas "autobio" (Stein's most-likely-to-be-completely-read work) in its entirety.

I am saying again and I will repeat again to emphasize again that one ought to buy this work this work the selected writings of gertrude stein instead of buying the autobiography of alice b. toklas which is a fine book yet an expensive book as books go compared to this book a book that is more expensive but commensurately valuable as value is. Book to be bought needs the buying.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine Compilation, January 1, 2005

By 

D. Cannon "Love2Read" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (Paperback)

I think Gertrude Stein is a supreme literary artist of the 20th century, and this anthology offers a wide range of her work, which ranges from poetry to essays. Her writing is difficult to penetrate, but in her case, and I rarely say this about abstruse writing, it enhances the effect. It's as if underneath words lies the human being itself, in all its feeling and rhythms, and language is a mere shadow of this self. Her words are like paths crisscrossing around the being, so that the reader can eventually see the whole. Magnificant artist. She also was apparently a good person, having befriended Hemingway, James, Picasso and others. A+.