Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

From the celebrated author of Square Haunting comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells.

'Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me,' wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding - and contested - writers of the twentieth century.

In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso's portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography - a veritable celebrity. Following her death, however, a different Stein begins to emerge from the archive, one Toklas had worked tirelessly to contain.

But what was the real life behind the legend? And how did Toklas - who had devoted her life to enabling Stein's work - cope with the stream of biographers who sought to challenge her own narrative? Using astonishing never-before-seen material, Wade depicts Stein as yet unseen, vulnerable and contemplative, with Toklas far from passive at her side.

This is Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human.