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Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), a writer of experimental prose, is one of the most original American Modernists. Born in Pennsylvania, she lived most of her life in Paris with her companion, Alice B. Toklas. Experimental books like Three Lives (1909), Tender Buttons (1914), and The Making of Americans (1925) established her reputation as an avant-garde stylist, and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas made her an international celebrity. As an experimental writer she has been an inspiration to countless novelists and poets in our century, from Ernest Hemingway and Edith Sitwell to Jack Kerouac and Robert Duncan.