42 pages 1 hour read

Gertrude Stein

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1933

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Key Figures

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, to a wealthy family of German Jewish descent, although she makes no mention of her Jewish origins in The Autobiography. She traveled to Europe in her early youth before returning to the United States to complete her education. She studied at Radcliffe College under William James and, being interested in psychology, pursued a medical degree at Johns Hopkins University. However, Stein dropped out and in 1903 made her home in Paris, where she began her life as a writer and art collector. She was an instrumental tastemaker, challenging herself to look beyond conventional beauty and seek the radical avant-garde art she found on the premises of the surly dealer Ambroise Vollard. Always on the lookout for a new painter or artist, Stein was an early collector and encourager of the work of Matisse and Picasso.

Where her own writing was concerned, Stein was experimental, seeking to challenge conventional syntax and to dispense with the 19th-century literary tradition’s excessive use of metaphor and emotion. Instead, like other Modernist writers, Stein sought a combination of descriptive precision and a

blurred text

blurred text

Related Titles

By Gertrude Stein

Study Guide

logo

A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass

Gertrude Stein

A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass

Gertrude Stein

Study Guide

logo

If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein

If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein

Study Guide

logo

Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]

Gertrude Stein

Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]

Gertrude Stein

Plot Summary

logo

Three Lives

Gertrude Stein

Three Lives

Gertrude Stein