You are, of course, never yourself , wrote Gertrude Stein (18741946) in one of her famously witty autobiographies. Since the 1920s Stein has been celebrated
in many incarnations: as the embodiment of Left Bank bohemia, as a patron of modern art and writing, as a gay icon, as the coiner of the expression Lost
Generation, and as the hostess of perhaps the most famous salon of modern times. Yet despite an immense and varied body of work and a writing life that
spanned 50 years, she remains one of the most recognisable and yet least known
of the twentieth-centurys major literary figures. With detailed reference to her works, to the many notable portraits and readings, and to Steins own entertaining anecdotes, Lucy Daniel discusses how the legend of Gertrude Stein was created, both by herself and her admirers.
