USEFUL KNOWLEDGE-PB

Useful Knowledge is pleasant and therefore it is very much to be enjoyed," writes Gertrude Stein in her "Advertisement for this Book"-an apt characterization of the experience of reading it sixty years after its disappearance from print. Despite her long expatriation, she "always remained" in her words, "firmly born in Allegheny Pennsylvania." Indeed- physical detachment from her homeland seems only to have deepened her love for the country, a passion very nearly erotic, that blossomed in this private remembrance that is both tender and humorous. War, Woodrow Wilson, Chicago, Sherwood Anderson-such is the range of her intimate concerns. As for the significant questions to which her writings respond: "Wherein Iowa differs from Kansas and Indiana" and "Wherein the South differs from the North," useful knowledge indeed, when the thought is opened along with the word in these extraordinary prose inventions. Keith Waldrop's introduction furnishes new insight into the process and development

Gertrude Stein Born on February 3, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Gertude Stein was an imaginative, influential writer in the twentieth century. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, she spent her early years in Europe with her family. The Steins later settled in Oakland, California. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1898 with a bachelor's degree. While at the college, Stein studied psychology under William James (and would remain greatly influenced by his ideas). She went on to study medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School.In 1903, Gertrude Stein moved to Paris to be with her brother, Leo, where they began collecting Postimpressionist paintings, thereby helping several leading artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. She and Leo established a famous literary and artistic salon at 27 rue de Fleurus. Leo moved to Florence, Italy, in 1912, taking many of the paintings with him. Gertrude remained in Paris with her assistant Alice B. Toklas, who she met in 1909. Toklas and Stein would