Three Lives by G Stein

Skip to product information
1 of 1

Click to look inside

Three Lives by G Stein

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
World of Books

At World of Books, you’ll find millions of preloved reads at great prices, from bestsellers to hidden gems. Every book you buy saves money and helps reduce waste, so you can read more for less while giving stories a second life.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free US shipping over $15
  • Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
  • Millions of affordable books
  • Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!

Three Lives by G Stein

LARGE PRINT EDITION. Three Lives (1909) is a collection of novellas by Gertrude Stein. Characterized by its straightforward narrative style and disjointed prose, Three Lives proved a breakthrough for Stein, who had previously found it difficult bringing her works to publication. Each novella is set in Bridgepoint, a fictionalized version of Baltimore, where working class people of all races undergo the dignities and indignities of life in an industrialized nation. In The Good Anna, an immigrant housekeeper working in the home of a wealthy woman commands respect and order from all who cross her path. Caring only for her three small dogs, she does her best to forget a traumatic past. Having lost her mother in Germany at a young age, Anna moved to Bridgepoint with hope for a better future, but poor health and unlucky relationships haunt her throughout her life. Melanctha is the story of a young mixed-race woman who suffers from a lack of opportunity in a segregated city. Despite being honest and empathetic, she constantly finds herself betrayed and abandoned by those she trusts, and soon her pure heart and kind nature reach their limit. In The Gentle Lana, another German immigrant endures the banality and heartbreak of unhappily married life, raising a family and caring for a home without ever feeling fulfilled as an individual. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Gertrude Stein's Three Lives is a classic work of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on February 3, 1874, to an affluent Jewish family, spent her early childhood in Vienna and Paris, and later grew up in Oakland, California. At Radcliffe College she studied under William James, who remained her lifelong friend, and then went to Johns Hopkins to study medicine. Abandoning her studies, she moved to Paris with her brother Leo in 1903. At 27 rue de Fleurus, Gertrude Stein lived with Alice B. Toklas, who would remain her companion for forty years. Not only was she an innovator in literature and a supporter of modern poetry and art, she was the friend and mentor of those who visited her at her now-famous home: Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Guillaume Appollinaire. Her first important book was Three Lives (1909), then Tender Buttons (1914), followed by her magnum opus, The Making of Americans (1925), and the book which became a huge popular success, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). Just before her death at the age of 72 on July 27, 1946, she asked Alice Toklas from her hospital bed, What is the answer? Getting no answer, she then asked, In that case, what is the question?
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780486280592
ISBN 10 0486280594
Title Three Lives
Author G Stein
Series Thrift Editions
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Dover Publications Inc.
Year published 2011-05-27
Number of pages 176
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.