Novel of Thank You (American Literature) - Softcover

Stein, Ms Gertrude

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564783626 ISBN 13: 9781564783622

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994

Synopsis

This is the first paperback edition of one of Stein's most revealing novels. Written in 1925-26 (but not published until 1958), it is Stein's midcareer assessment of herself, her writing, and her relationships, composed in the unique style for which she is celebrated. In place of a traditional narrative, Stein explores the nature of narrative, its possibilities, the various genres (historical novels, the novel of manners, adventure stories) available to the writer, the conventions of novel-writing, and the novelist's relation to her materials. In a sense, the novel is about "preparing a novel" (the subject of chap. 50), about everything that goes through a writer's head as she begins to write. Mixed in with her meditations on writing are daily events in her marriage to Alice B. Toklas, visits from friends - including such notable figures of the period as Josephine Baker, Virgil Thomson, Rene Crevel, and a number of expatriate American writers and artists - travels in and around France, memories of the past, inquiries into names and the nature of identity, and virtually anything else that occurs to her. As she writes at one point, "It can easily be remembered that a novel is everything, " so everything of interest to Stein goes into her preparations for the novel that is A Novel of Thank You.

About this title

About the Author:

Gertrude Stein (1874 1946) was born in Pittsburgh to a prosperous German-Jewish family. She was educated in France and the United States, worked under the pioneering psychologist William James, and later studied medicine. With her brother Leo she was an important patron of the arts, acquiring works by many contemporary artists, most famously Picasso, while her home became a popular meeting place for writers and painters from Matisse to Hemingway. Her books include Three Lives, Tender Buttons, and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

From Library Journal:

With four titles back in print since January, Stein is the comeback kid of 1994. Though written in the 1920s, Thank You was first published posthumously in 1958, 12 years after the author's death. In typical Stein fashion, the book is more about the act of writing a novel than it is an actual novel.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1564783626
• ISBN 13: 9781564783622
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256