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Gertrude Stein Has Arrived

The Homecoming of a Literary Legend

Roy Morris Jr.

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The American book tour that catapulted Gertrude Stein from quirky artist to a household name.

In 1933, experimental writer and longtime expatriate Gertrude Stein skyrocketed to overnight fame with the publication of an unlikely best seller, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Pantomiming the voice of her partner Alice, The Autobiography was actually Gertrude's work. But whoever the real author was, the uncharacteristically lucid and readable book won over the hearts of thousands of Americans, whose clamor to meet Gertrude and Alice in person convinced them to return to America for the first...

The American book tour that catapulted Gertrude Stein from quirky artist to a household name.

In 1933, experimental writer and longtime expatriate Gertrude Stein skyrocketed to overnight fame with the publication of an unlikely best seller, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Pantomiming the voice of her partner Alice, The Autobiography was actually Gertrude's work. But whoever the real author was, the uncharacteristically lucid and readable book won over the hearts of thousands of Americans, whose clamor to meet Gertrude and Alice in person convinced them to return to America for the first time in thirty years from their self-imposed exile in France.

For more than six months, Gertrude and Alice crisscrossed America, from New England to California, from Minnesota to Texas, stopping at thirty-seven different cities along the way. They had tea with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, attended a star-studded dinner party at Charlie Chaplin's home in Beverly Hills, enjoyed fifty-yard-line seats at the annual Yale-Dartmouth football game, and rode along with a homicide detective through the streets of Chicago. They met with the Raven Society in Edgar Allan Poe's old room at the University of Virginia, toured notable Civil War battlefields, and ate Oysters Rockefeller for the first time at Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans. Everywhere they went, they were treated like everyone's favorite maiden aunts—colorful, eccentric, and eminently quotable.

In Gertrude Stein Has Arrived, noted literary biographer Roy Morris Jr. recounts with characteristic energy and wit the couple's rollicking tour, revealing how—much to their surprise—they rediscovered their American roots after three decades of living abroad. Entertaining and sympathetic, this clear-eyed account captures Gertrude Stein for the larger-than-life legend she was and shows the unique relationship she had with her indefatigable companion, Alice B. Toklas—the true power behind the throne.

Reviews

Reviews

... Morris succeeds in describing a time when an experimental writer could become a celebrity. Accessible and engaging, this fresh look at Stein's life is especially recommended for those interested in modernist literature.

An entertaining and fast-paced chronicle of Gertrude Stein's seven-month American tour in the fall and winter of 1934–1935... Drawing on contemporaneous newspaper stories and on firsthand accounts, Morris captures the excitement of the period when a cult avant-garde author found herself a national celebrity... Morris's lively account provides a window onto an enchanting chapter of modernist literary history.

[Morris'] writing is brisk and breezy... he magnifies and makes new.

In the annals of American celebrity, Gertrude Stein's barn-burning 1934–35 lecture tour, accompanied by her lifelong partner, Alice Toklas, may be in a class of its own. Indeed, it almost cries out for attention, as the literary biographer Roy Morris Jr. reveals in his brisk new book, Gertrude Stein Has Arrived.

While the story of becoming a literary celebrity at age sixty is familiar to anyone who knows the Stein saga, Morris has more to say about it than anyone before him.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
264
ISBN
9781421431536
Illustration Description
10 b&w photos
Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Author's Note
Introduction 3
1. A Bell within Me Rang
2. Many Saints Seen
3. You'd Better Come Over
4. Gertrude Stein Has Arrived
5. Yes Chicago Too
6. Naturally the Northern

List of Illustrations
Author's Note
Introduction 3
1. A Bell within Me Rang
2. Many Saints Seen
3. You'd Better Come Over
4. Gertrude Stein Has Arrived
5. Yes Chicago Too
6. Naturally the Northern Girls Came South
7. No There There
Epilogue. I Am Already Homesick for America
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Roy Morris Jr.

Roy Morris Jr. is the author of eight books, including Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company, Declaring His Genius: Oscar Wilde in North America, and American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad.
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