Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914 (Gertrude and Leo), and the second with Alice B. Toklas, from 1907 until Stein's death in 1946 (Gertrude and Alice). Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein cultivated significant tertiary relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world of her time.

From the "I can't believe this is out of print" file comes Stein's monster of a novel, which was initially serialized by Hemingway and Ford Madox Ford in the Transatlantic Review. Although Stein does not follow convention, the plot portrays three generations of an American family. An abridged edition was released in 1934, but this is a facsimile of the original text published in Paris in 1925 by Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions. Essential for all literature collections.