The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

the long version

"*The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ... is not an autobiography by Alice Toklas, Stein's companion from 1907 to her death, but a funny, innovative memoir which pays unusual attention to the 'wives of geniuses' as well as the 'geniuses' themselves. It focuses on the Paris years, mythologizing the Stein-Toklas household and presenting Stein as the writing member of an international art movement that starred Picasso. A lot of what we remember about Paris in the 1920s comes from *The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas*. Along the way Stein tells some stories about her past which are, according to her biographer James Mellow, streamlined versions of the truth." -Phyllis Rose in *The Norton Book of Women's Lives*