Gertrude Stein; Three Lives

With an Introduction by Lyn Hejinian

Series No.: 100

ISBN: 1-892295-33-4, Pages: 436

American Literature, Fiction

Masterworks of Fiction (1909)

First published in 1909, the great American version of Gustave Flaubert’s Trois Contes recounts the lives of three plain and humble women: “The Good Anna,” “Melanctha,” and “The Gentle Lena.” Anna and Lena work as household servants. Melanctha, a Black woman, is involved in an unhappy love affair. But to express these revelatory fictions in this manner is to miss everything, for Stein’s language of the first decade of the 20th century is still as fresh today as if the characters had just created the American tongue.

Renowned poet Lyn Hejinian adds new perceptions about this work in her stunning Introduction.