Search Results: Gertrude Stein from Lightholder Books

Blood on the Dining-Room Floor by Gertrude Stein. 1948 Banyan Press, 80 pages, #514 of 626 printed. This was Stein's attempt at the mystery detective genre.

Condition: VG. Gilt fading on the spine, some shelf wear to the boards, slipcase separating at the seams and worn.

"He cried when he was disappointed and fell down when he was angry."

Geography and Plays by Gertrude Stein. 1922 Four Seas, first edition later printing, 419 pages. Includes early writings, plays, and poems.

Condition: Missing jacket. Rubbing and shelfwear to boards, owner name on pastedown, Stein picture taped to first page, pencil markings on endpapers, penned checkmarks on ad card.

"All the time there is melodrama there is monopoly and all the time there is more there is no excuse."

How to Write by Gertrude Stein. 1931 Plain edition, first edition, 395 pages. Only a thousand printed of the first edition. This is a craft book like no other, experimental and lyrical and the third book published by her press.

Condition: VG. No dust jacket, as issued. Browning to boards, bookstore sticker on back paste down, some pages bent at the corner.

"I return to sentences as a refreshment."

Operas and Plays by Gertrude Stein. 1932 Plain Edition. First edition of 500 copies, 400 pages. Plain Edition is the press Stein and Toklas created since publishers wouldn't publish Stein's work. Includes two operas and eighteen plays by the trailblazing modernist.

Condition: Good. Missing original slipcase. Crease along spine, small white mark, corners slightly bent, darkening on back cover, According to Gertrude Stein: A Bibliography by Robert A. Wilson (Phoenix, 1974) there should be four leaves in the front, it looks like mine is missing two blank pages in front. The first leaf is separating a bit (see picture). Square, pages clean, presents great, small pen mark on the bottom of p11.

Things as They Are by Gertrude Stein. 1950 Banyan Press, first edition, #273 of 516, 88 pages. Stein wrote this novel in 1903 while she was at university but it was published posthumously by Alice Toklas.

Condition: Good. Bump and tearing to front board, see photo. Tanning to boards. some warping to page ends.

"The last month of Adele's life had been such a succession of wearing experiences that she rather regretted that she was not to have the steamer all to herself."

Three Lives by Gertrude Stein. 1909 Grafton Press, first edition, 279 pages. A thousand copies were printed of the first edition, 300 of which were used for the British edition. Stein's debut tells three unlinked stories of working class women in a fictional Baltimore. These stories are more accessible than Stein's later work, yet still new in style. No publisher would publish it so she funded her own publication with the vanity press Grafton Press. Later Stein would sell some Picassos to establish her own publisher to publisher her books.

Condition: Very good. Without dust jacket, as issued (Gertrude Stein: A Bibliography; Wilson, Phoenix Bookshop). Rubbing and shelf wear to boards, bumps to spine, the slightest of leans, small pencil markings on endpapers.

"The tradesmen of Bridgeport learned to dread the sound of "Miss Mathilda," for with that name the good Anna always conquered."

Two Poems (hitherto unpublished) by Gertrude Stein. 1948 Banyan Press, first edition, #332 of 415 copies made, 4 pages. Stein was one of the most influential modernists, writers, and hosts of the early 1900s Paris. These poems were published by Stein's longtime partner, Alice Toklas, after Stein's death.

Condition: Good. 3-inch tear on back cover, pencil notes on inside front cover.

"Believe in dolphins."