Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on February 3,
1874, to an affluent Jewish family, spent her early childhood in
Vienna and Paris, and later grew up in Oakland, California. At
Radcliffe College she studied under William James, who remained her
lifelong friend, and then went to Johns Hopkins to study medicine.
Abandoning her studies, she moved to Paris with her brother Leo in
1903. At 27 rue de Fleurus, Gertrude Stein lived with Alice B.
Toklas, who would remain her companion for forty years. Not only
was she an innovator in literature and a supporter of modern poetry
and art, she was the friend and mentor of those who visited her at
her now-famous home- Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau,
Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and
Guillaume Appollinaire. Her first important book was Three Lives
(1909), then Tender Buttons (1914), followed by her magnum opus,
The Making of Americans (1925), and the book which became a huge
popular success, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). Just
before her death at the age of 72 on July 27, 1946, she asked Alice
Toklas from her hospital bed, "What is the answer?" Getting no
answer, she then asked, "In that case, what is the question?"
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The
Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected
Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University
of Connecticut.
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