Alphabets And Birthdays

Written in 1940 and intended as a follow-up to Stein's children's book "The World Is Round," published the previous year, "To Do" is a fanciful journey through the alphabet.

Examineshow surrealism enriches our understanding of Stein’s writing through its poetics of oppositions Gertrude Stein’s Surrealist Years brings to life Stein’s surrealist sensibilities and personal values borne from her WWII anxieties, not least of which originated in a dread of anti-Semitism. Stein’s earlier works such as Tender Buttons and Lucy Church Amiably tend to prioritize formal innovations over narrative-building and overt political motifs. However, Ery Shin argues that Stein’s later works engage more with storytelling and life-writing in startling ways—most emphatically and poignantly through the surrealist lens. Beginning with The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and continuing in later works, Stein renders legible her war-torn era’s jarring dystopian energies through narratives filled with hallucinatory visions, teleportation, extreme coincidences, action reversals, doppelgangers, dream sequences spanning both sleeping and waking states, and great whiffs of the occult. Such surrealist gestures are predicated on Stein’s return to the independent clause and, by extension, to plot, characterization, and anecdotes. By summoning the marvelous in a historically situated world, Stein joins her surrealist contemporaries in their own ambivalent crusade on behalf of historiography. Besides illuminating Stein’s art and life, the surrealist framework developed here brings readers deeper into those philosophical ideas invoked by war. Topics of discussion emphasize how varied Jewish experiences were in Hitler’s Europe, how outliers like Stein can be included in the surrealist project, surrealism’s theoretical bind in the face of WWII, and the age-old question of artistic legacy.

Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson are known as much for their formidable egos as for their contributions to twentieth-century arts. That either could collaborate intimately with anyone is surprising. Yet Stein and Thomson did work together, magnificently so, most notably on the landmark opera Four Saints in Three Acts and the fanciful The Mother of Us All. This annotated collection of correspondence reveals the spark that existed between the two American masters over the course of their sometimes rocky friendship. The roughly 400 letters written between 1926-1946 record the fascinating nature of their partnership-their mutual excitement over evolving projects and their process for bringing together two often radical aesthetic sensibilities. The style of the letters is careful and forceful when the relationship is strained, but most often it is relaxed and affectionate. As a record of friendship the letters are particularly compelling, replete with love, support, and mutual fascination. Not surprisingly, the correspondence is stylistically remarkable-Stein being arguably the most innovative literary modernist and Thomson the author of crisp, insightful, irreverent music criticism, the most quoted of his century. In addition to their artistic partnership, the letters provide a revealing glimpse into their individual careers in the realms of literature and music, as they document a web of mutual friendships and the vibrant artistic community of the early twentieth century. The editors' notes contextualize this valuable exchange and add a layer of richness and accessibility. The volume will interest readers, critics, and scholars in music, literature, avant garde arts and modern culture more generally.

There's great magic in the small discoveries and accomplishments of a child, but they often slip away unacknowledged in the hustle and bustle of living. Now parents can capture those moments in letters written each year on their child's birthday.The Book of Birthday Letters gives parents a way to record the special events and those precious ordinary ones, then share them years from now with their child. This book provides a place for parents to write down the ordinary-but very important-moments in a child's life. The introduction includes 40 general thought-starters and encourages parents to set aside 30 minutes each year on their child's birthday to write about the child's current life. The book spans from birth to age 21. Wise, witty, and insightful quotes from the author are sprinkled throughout. This is a book that will be passed down through generations.

The first extensive examination of Stein's notebooks, manuscripts and letters, prepared over a period of twenty years, Gertrude Stein: The Language That Rises asks new questions and explores new ways of reading Stein. This definitive study give us a finely detailed, deeply felt understanding of Stein, the great modernist, throughout one of her most productive periods. From "An Elucidation" in 1923 to Lectures In America in 1934, Ulla E. Dydo examines the process of the making and remaking of Stein's texts as they move from notepad to notebook to manuscript, from an idea to the ultimate refinement of the author's intentions. The result is an unprecedented view of the development of Stein's work, word by word, text by text, and over time.

This monumental collection of correspondence between Gertrude Stein and critic, novelist, and photographer Carl Van Vechten provides crucial insight into Stein's life, art, and artistic milieu as well as Van Vechten's support of major cultural projects, such as the Harlem Renaissance. From their first meeting in 1913, Stein and Van Vechten formed a unique and powerful relationship, and Van Vechten worked vigorously to publish and promote Stein's work. Existing biographies of Stein--including her own autobiographical writings--omit a great deal about her experiences and thought. They lack the ordinary detail of what Stein called "daily everyday living" the immediate concerns, objects, people, and places that were the grist for her writing. These letters not only vividly represent those details but also showcase Stein and Van Vechten's private selves as writers. Edward Burns's extensive annotations include detailed cross-referencing of source materials.