Other editions of book Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena

2012 Reprint of 1909 Edition. "Three Lives" (1909) was Gertrude Stein's first published work. The book is divided into three stories, "The Good Anna," "Melanctha," and "The Gentle Lena." The three stories are independent of each other, but all are set in the fictional town of Bridgepoint. Each one is a psychological portrait of the named protagonist. All three are members of the lower socioeconomic stratum of Bridgepoint. Stein had dropped out of Johns Hopkins Medical School before graduating, but not before completing her third year of training. She was particularly interested in psychology and had been a student of William James when she was an undergraduate. These three stories are detailed psychological characterizations of the three characters.

Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of Miss Mathilda ,for with that name the good Anna always conquered. The strictest of the one price stores found that they could give things for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that Miss Mathilda could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper by Lindheims. Lindheims was Anna sfavorite store, for there they had bargain days, when flour and sugar were sold for a quarter of a cent less for a pound, and there the heads of the departments were all her friends and always managed to give her the bargain prices, even on other days. Anna led an arduous and troubled life. Anna managed the whole little house for Miss Mathilda. It was a funny little house, one of a whole row of all the same kind that made a close pile like a row of dominoes that a child knocks over, for they were built along a street which at this point came down a steep hill. They were funny little houses, two stories high, with red brick fronts and long white steps. This one little house was always very full with Miss Mathilda, an under servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna svoice that scolded, managed, grumbled all day long.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at

By the American writer, poet, feminist, playwright, and catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Increasingly, she developed her own highly idiosyncratic, playful, sometimes repetitive and sometimes humorous style. Three Lives (1909) was her first published work, followed by Matisse, Picasso and Gertrude Stein (1912) - which includes the stories "A Long Gay Book" and "Many Many Women". Many of her experimental, stream-of-consciousness works such as Tender Buttons (1914) have since been interpreted by critics as a feminist reworking of patriarchal language. These works were loved by the avant-garde, but mainstream success initially remained elusive.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Three Lives, Stein’s collection of three biographical portraits of lower-class women, combines French literary realism with American psychological theory. Two stories describe the monotonous lives of Anna and Lena, two German servant girls in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Williams James’s psychological theories inspired Stein’s episodic style, which transports the reader directly into the characters’ consciousness, especially in “Melanctha,” the longest of the three stories. The psychological drama of Three Lives consists in the protagonists’ search for the right words to express their identities. Trapped in their socially realistic, simplistic vocabulary and in perpetually repetitive speech patterns, these women fail to communicate their dreams of love and emotional fulfillment. Anna, of “The Good Anna,” is a soft tyrant with a firm Old World sense of “the appropriate ugliness” of things. Her “hard and arduous life” rests on her overdeveloped sense of mothering others: Miss Mathilda, her friends, and the maids, whom she perpetually “scolds” to improve their characters. Her friend Mrs. Lehntman—“the only romance Anna ever knew”—exploits Anna’s desire to give money and affection but then leaves her. Shortly afterward, Miss Mathilda moves from the town into the country. Thus abandoned by the women who had governed her life, Anna opens a boardinghouse but charges her guests too little to cover her...

Three Lives (1909) was American writer Gertrude Stein's first published book. The book is separated into three stories, "The Good Anna", "Melanctha", and "The Gentle Lena". The three stories are independent of each other, but all are set in Bridgepoint, a fictional town based on Baltimore."The Good Anna", the first of Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives, is a novella set in "Bridgepoint" about Anna Federner, a servant of "solid lower middle-class south german stock". Part I describes Anna’s happy life as housekeeper for Miss Mathilda and her difficulties with unreliable under servants and "stray dogs and cats". She loves her "regular dogs": Baby, an old, blind, terrier; "bad Peter," loud and cowardly; and "the fluffy little Rags." Anna is the undisputed authority in the household, and in her five years with Miss Mathilda she oversees in turn four under servants: Lizzie, Molly, Katy, and Sallie. Sometimes even the lazy and benign Miss Mathilda feels rebellious under Anna’s iron hand; she is also concerned because Anna is always giving away money, and tries to protect her from her many poor friends. Part II, "The Life of the Good Anna", fills in the background. Born in Germany, in her teens Anna emigrates to "the far South", where her mother dies of consumption. She moves to Bridgepoint near her brother, a baker, and takes charge of the household of Miss Mary Wadsmith and her young nephew and niece, who are orphans. Little Jane resists Anna’s strong will, but after Anna has provoked a showdown becomes "careful and respectful" and even gives Anna a green parrot. When after six years Jane is finally married, Anna refuses to follow Miss Mary in the new household. Mrs. Lehntman, a widow and midwife who "was the romance of Anna’s life", helps Anna tell Miss Wadsmith that she cannot accompany her. Anna then goes to work for Doctor Shonjen, a hearty bachelor, with whom she gets along. Previously Shonjen has operated on her, and Anna’s general health remains poor: she has headaches and is "thin and worn". When Mrs. Lehntman, who has two careless children, adopts a baby without consulting Anna, the latter is offended and spends more time with another large working family, the Drehtens. She also visits her brother the baker, but has trouble with her sister-in-law, though she eventually helps with her savings when her god-daughter niece is married. Mrs. Lehntman rashly decides to open a boarding house, and Anna despite her misgivings lends her the necessary money, for "Romance is the ideal in one’s life and it is very lonely living with it lost". Having been once defeated in the matter of Johnny's adoption, she can no longer impose her will in the relationship. ("In friendship, power always has its downward curve.") When Dr. Shonjen marries a "proud" and "unpleasant" woman, Anna seeks a new position. Encouraged by a fortune-teller, she goes to work for Miss Mathilda, and these are her happiest years, until finally her ailing favorite dog Baby dies and Miss Mathilda leaves permanently for Europe........Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in the Allegheny West neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Henri Matisse would meet. In 1933, Stein published a kind-of memoir of her Paris years, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of her life partner, Alice B. Toklas, an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde.....

Gertrude Stein’s first published work Three Lives is divided into three different stories, each one a psychological portrait of a different women. The Good Anna describes an exacting German house servant; Melanctha explores the love affair of an African-American woman; and The Gentle Lena narrates the fate of a patient German maid. The three narratives are independent of each other, but all are set in the fictional town of Bridgepoint. The innovative style of Three Lives broke with narrative, linear, and temporal conventions and catapulted Stein to the forefront of the American Modernist movement and inspired such later novelists as Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac.

Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Gertrude Stein is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Gertrude Stein then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

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