Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

Anyone working or interested in working on this library? I really don't have any idea where to start but I think this could be an interesting project.

I believe a list of the contents of Stein's library at the time of her death is in the Beinecke, where she willed many of her papers (because of Van Vechten's and Wilder's associations). Does anyone know whether it was published? There is a Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas : a reference guide, which probably answers that.

Well, I didn't see anything in that or Gertrude Stein : an annotated critical bibliography. So, unless somebody knows more, I guess anyone who's serious about starting this needs to contact Yale to see what form a catalog is available in.

I would be so into this one, if anyone finds a catalog...

I would love to work on this one. Combined Alice & Gertrude? or just G? did anyone contact yale? i can do it if nobody else has.

Was just poking around to see if anyone had worked on Gertrude Stein. I was curious if we know of any works she owned by Ernest Haycox. Several articles online say she was a fan, but I haven't found a source for that info like a quote from her --- so I wondered if her library inventory would perhaps suggest it... Wishful thinking.

I'd be really interested in helping with this, but I can't seem to find anything catalogued online for Stein's library. Is there anything to suggest she had one? Her well-known love of expensive artwork would have prevented her from building one up. That, and she did frequent Beach's Shakespeare and Company quite regularly, followed by the American Lending Library. If anyone has any photographs, diary entries, letters, etc. to the contrary, I'd love to take a look.

>7 BuiltByBooks: Her well-known love of expensive artwork...
Except, when she was buying it, it wasn't expensive yet.

>8 PhaedraB: That's a valid point. But even Stein's tastes were exorbitant for her modest allowance. It was her main reason also for her simple wardrobe, as she explained to Hemingway.

Perhaps an inventory could be found here:
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/gertrude-stein-and-alice...

I've begun Stein's library. it took some digging to find her books. The collection is predominantly Stein's, but there are a handful of titles which were presented to Alice after Gertrude's death. I'll hopefully find Toklas' books to combine later, but she lived in relative poverty from 1946 onwards.

Though I don't think Stein's collection even reaches 200 titles, Jeremy, could you bestow a lifetime account please?

And it's complete, bar a library bio. I believe I have all the books catalogued by Yale which were in Stein's library. There's no single call number which the collection is under but it is meticulously catalogued, and can be access with individual searches under the keywords:

Stein, Gertrude, + Ownership
Stein, Gertrude, + Presentation inscription
Stein, Gertrude, + The Library of
Stein, Gertrude, + Bookplate

Just to reiterate, this is in no way an accurate reflection of what Stein read. She regularly frequented both Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare & Co., and the American Library in Paris.

Edit: In further reading, it's not as complete as I thought. The works of Shakespeare, Balzac, Dumas and several contemporary authors which Stein owned as outlined in a 1947 article in the Yale Gazette have not been accounted for. There dosn't seem to be any record of them in the Orbis catalogue so I've emailed Yale University in the hope of getting a more complete list, hopefully from the original bequest.

Awesome! No sign of Haycox yet. What's the 1947 Yale Gazette article you mention? Is there a link for it?

Yup, here you go: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40857348?uid=3738232&uid=2&uid=4&a....
Donald Gallup was curator for the Collection of American Literature at the library. I particularly love how he describes Stein's library: "it was clearly a library to be read and lent, not of rare editions but of serviceable books printed in good legible type - a friendly collection."

I really hope I can finish this one.

Awesome! Thanks!

Huzzah!

The wonderful archivists at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale, have provided me with a .pdf of the original bequest inventory: all 28 glorious pages of titles. I was also told that not everything which was donated after Stein's death was preserved. Some were discarded, others entered circulation, which is why I was having difficulties finding them in the Orbis catalogue.

The inventory list is for all the books and periodicals owned by Stein (of which I was entirely misinformed as there are quite a few) and books which also belonged to Toklas; their library was a joint venture after all.

I'll drop everything else to finish this off. Jeremy, may I have a lifetime account, please? And a legacy profile also?

Edit: Link https://www.librarything.com/profile/GertrudeSteinLibrary

>16 BuiltByBooks: - Lifetime &c. set - I'll do the Legacy profile soon (I have a few others I need to do so will batch 'em)

Awesome, cheers!

Updating this - finished, or are you still adding?

I'm still adding. I'm currently away - hiking through Ancient Greek ruins at the moment - but I had fourteen more pages to get through when I left. Hopefully I'll have them finished by the end of September =)

Cool, and have fun!

It took me slightly longer than anticipated, but I'm happy to say that the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas' legacy library is finished.

Jeremy, when you get a chance, could you mark it complete in the list please, and change the name to include Toklas? Although she outlived Stein by 20+ years, I'd like to keep the profile under Stein's name as the 1947 bequest focuses on Stein's library and Toklas' books at the time.

Done!

Wow. Awesome! Congratulations!

Awesome! Anything particularly interesting jump out at you while creating this Legacy Library?

Cheers, guys!

I guess the most interesting aspect for me was the size. I always think of both Stein and Toklas as associated with an art collection rather than a library so it was a nice surprise. It's modest in comparison with other writers' libraries of the period, but at 1342 recorded volumes it's not a small collection. The library is dominated almost exclusively with novels. It's filled with sets of collected works, such as Honoré de Balzac, Dumas, Verne, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Twain, Anthony Trollope, Frank R. Stockton, Maria Edgeworth, Dickens, George Meredith, and James Fenimore Cooper, most in inexpensive editions, so I can see why Gallup called it "a friendly collection".

It's also interesting to note that Stein read almost exclusively in English. She spoke French and German - fluently I think - but the only foreign language editions in her library were gifted by their authors. As a thought, I think a worthwhile project would be to trace the friendships of the whole modernist movement through the presentation copies found on their shelves.

However, their collection is lacking in the classics. While I don't believe the bequest represents their library 100% - the only literary journals which were sent to Yale included contributions by Stein, and the only books sent after Toklas' death were presentation copies - the only Greek and Latin authors found on their shelves were Euripides, Aurelius, Lucian, Julius Caesar, and a complete set of Cicero's Letters. Stein was famously critical of the American education system and the neglect of the classics, so I think it's unusual not to find more, such as Plato, Aristophanes, Virgil, etc.

Still, I don't think Stein & Toklas' library was accessible before (I certainly haven't been able to find anything online bar the presentation copies at Yale University), so this makes for a good start.

Very cool! Thanks!