Gertrude Stein in UMW Rare Books

This post was written by Ellis Fraser ‘26, Special Collections & University Archives Student Worker

For Pride Month this June, UMW Special Collections and University Archives is highlighting author Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) in the Rare Books collection. Stein was an avant-garde poet, novelist, memoirist, and art collector. She settled in France as an American expatriate, first in Paris, then moved to the suburbs of Paris with her partner Alice B. Toklas during the Nazi occupation of France.

Grayscale photographic print of Gertrude Stein (right) sitting in a garden next to Alice B. Toklas (left). — [1] Gertrude Stein (right) and Alice B. Toklas

The challenging accessibility and intelligibility of her experiments in language have remained controversial since their initial publication. UMW Special Collections and University Archives has a variety of her works, from her most popular and conventional prose with The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, to her more experimental Four in America, or Geography and Plays.

If “More of double. A place in no new table” from A Piece of Coffee [2] trips you up when reading her work for the first time, heed Stein’s own advice for readers: “Just read the words on the paper. They’re in English. Just read them. Be simple and you’ll understand these things.” [3]

Published in 1931, Gertrude Stein’s How to Write was the first of her works to enter the University’s collection in the 1970s. The University acquired 14 more titles throughout the decade; including novels, poetry collections, opera, and nonfiction.

Art print, yellow background with black paper abstract botanical cutouts. — [4] Lithograph by the artist Henri Matisse, *Verve Volume VI, Nos. 21–22*, 1948

Stein contributes to the Rare Books Room’s larger collection of Modernists in literature and the fine arts including James Joyce, Henri Matisse, Picasso and more. The walls of the Parisian Left-Bank apartment shared by Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas displayed their vast collection of avant-garde artworks. Included in their collection of Modernists and Cubists were Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Both painters attended the couple’s elaborate soirees where they hosted artists, writers, celebrities and intellectuals.

Abstracted line drawing of woman's face with leaves in her hair. — [4] *Portrait de Françoise Gilot*, created by Pablo Picasso in 1946

Gertrude and Alice moved to Paris in 1903, creating their artist salon at 27 rue de Fleurus [5]. Stein and Toklas’s home was a Parisian locus of elaborate entertainment and cutting-edge artistic and literary experimentation, especially after the first World War. They gathered a generation of American and European expatriate creatives, chronicling and painting their lives between the wars. Stein dubbed the guests of their salon as “The Lost Generation.” Their orbit of influence included Ernest Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds and Sherwood Anderson. James Joyce and other writers in the SCUA collection were also guests of Stein and Toklas throughout the existence of their salon. Details and fictionalizations of these dinners and parties hosted by Stein and Toklas are chronicled in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in addition to the couple’s experiences of France during the two wars. Gertrude Stein wrote the fictionalized memoir in the voice of her partner Alice B. Toklas, though it is primarily a narrative of Stein’s life and experiences. Autobiography can be read at the Rare Books Room in the 1946 edition of Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein.

Random house cover page of "Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein." — Title page from *Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein*, published by Random House in 1946

Alice B. Toklas assisted Gertrude Stein by typing the manuscripts of The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans and The Making of Americans. [6]. Selected Writings, which includes these writings and many more, is available at the Rare Books Room and is an excellent introduction to Gertrude Stein’s works.