Additional information
by Gertrude Stein (Author), Catharine Stimpson (Editor), Harriet Chessman (Editor)
Author Biography
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. 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?"
Catharine R. Stimpson and Harriet Chessman, volume editors, are Dean of the New York University School of Arts and Sciences and the author of Someone Not Really Her Mother, respectively.