Synopses & Reviews
Gertrude Stein and Alice Babette Toklas met on September 8, 1907, in Paris, and remained together from that day until Gertrude's death in 1946. They became a legendary couple, photographed by Stieglitz, Man Ray & Cecil Beaton, painted by Picasso, and written about in the works of Hemingway, Paul Bowles and Sylvia Beach. Gertrude and Alice is the highly acclaimed story of their remarkable life together. From letters, memoirs and their published writings and with rich illustrations, Whitbread Award-winner Diana Souhami brings their characters, beliefs,and achievements vividly to life: "so emphatically and uncompromisingly themselves, that the world could do nothing less than accept them as they were."
Review
"A brilliant and witty chronicle of one of the happiest marriages in modern literary history. Not only star-studded but light-filled." -- John Richardson, author of A Life of Picasso
"Wonderfully entertaining…not many biographies can make you laugh out loud. A real treat." -- Time Out New York
“Souhami hits a true note in her ebullient introduction and sustains it throughout. Her narrative is terse and exact and her book, the story of two serious ladies, is very funny indeed.” - The Sunday Times
“Perfect: deadpan, brief and witty.” -- Independent
“An outrageously entertaining book.” -- Daily Telegraph
Synopsis
Gertrude Stein and Alice Babette Toklas met on Sunday 8 September 1907, in Paris. From that day on they were together, until Gertrude's death on Saturday 27 July 1946. Everyone who was anyone went to their salons at the rue de Fleurus. They became a legendary couple, photographed by Stieglitz, Man Ray & Cecil Beaton, painted by Picasso and written about in the works of Hemingway, Paul Bowles and Sylvia Beach. Gertrude and Alice, now with a new foreword, is the highly acclaimed story of their remarkable life together, of the paths that led them to each other, and of Alice's years of widowhood after Gertrude had died. From letters, memoirs and the published writings of Stein and Toklas and with rich illustrations, Whitbread Award-winner Diana Souhami brings their characters, beliefs and achievements vividly to life: 'so emphatically and uncompromisingly themselves, that the world could do nothing less than accept them as they were'.
About the Author
Diana Souhami is the author of Selkirk's Island, for which she won the Whitbread Biography Award, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall, for which she won the Lambda Literary Award, Coconut Chaos, Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter, Greta and Cecil, and Gluck: Her Biography. She lives in London.