First published in 1909, the great American version of Flaubert's Trois Contes recounts the lives of three plain and humble women - two working as household servants and the third, a Black woman, 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 Hjeinian adds new perceptions about this work in her stunning introduction.

Author Biography

Gertrude Stein was an avant-garde American writer, eccentric, and self-styled genius, whose Paris home was a salon for the leading artists and writers of the period between World Wars I and II. She is the author of The Making of Americans, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and also wrote two operas.