The French Reception of Gertrude Stein (1914-1932)

This study charts the reception of Gertrude Stein in France between the years 1914, with the publication of the experimental work, Tender Buttons, and 1932, when Stein gained popular acclaim with the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. A review of the examples of French "little magazines" housed in the Twentieth-Century Periodicals Collection in the Bibliothèque nationale de France reveals that despite the considerable language barriers that existed at that time, French writers and critics were far in advance of their American counterparts in their ability to appreciate Stein's avant-garde project.