Three Lives: Stories of the Good Anna, Melanctha and the Gentle Lena

London: John Rodker, 1927. Third British Edition.

Gertrude Stein's first published book, featuring stories about the difficult lives of three working-class women in the fictional city of Bridgepoint, which was based on Baltimore. This is the third British edition in the extremely scarce dust jacket. Wyndham Lewis has contributed a blurb to the upper panel of the dust jacket.

Grafton Press, a New York vanity publisher, issued "Three Lives" in 1909. That was followed by editions published by John Lane Company in 1915 (London) and 1920 (London and New York). John Rodker (London) issued our copy in 1927; the edition size is unknown. Strangely, a statement on the verso of the title page states, "Copyright, 1909, by Albert & Charles Boni, Inc." That statement is incorrect, although Boni did issue an American edition in 1927.

Copies of "Three Lives" with dust jackets are practically impossible to find before this 1927 issue. Wilson A1e. (Robert A. Wilson, assisted by Arthur Uphill, Gertrude Stein: A Bibliography. Rockville, Maryland: Quill & Brush, 1994).

PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 5/8 x 5 3/4 inches; 220 x 145 mm), 279, [1] pages, in blue-gray paper over boards, titles in black to upper board and spine, blue-gray topstain, in a blue-gray, unclipped dust jacket printed in black (hard cover).

CONDITION: Sunning to extremities, two small tears in the paper boards at top of spine, bottom corner bumped near spine, heavy offsetting to end pages, bottom edges unevenly trimmed. The titles to the upper board and spine remain bright. Internally, clean and unmarked, although pages are very lightly toned. The unclipped dust jacket has some chips and small tears, particularly along the spine edges, some sunning to the extremities, and a heavily sunned spine. Very Good in a fragile, Fair dust jacket.