Stein, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition (1932), (Paris), 1932.

Price: US$1500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: 400p small octavo, 1/500 copies printed. Inscribed by Stein "? and plays for Laura B. ? it is a pleasure in more than this willingness? a sentence for you, but which is it it's always a sentence for you Gertrude Stein" A very good copy in brown printed wraps in publisher's slipcase. Tiny stain on the spine, and enclosed in matching slipcase also very good with no splits just a few nicks. Attractive small bookplate. Stein published this herself.

Seller: Old New York Book Shop, ABAA, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.

STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Plain Edition, Paris., 1932.

Price: US$1614.51 + shipping

Description: First edition. Octavo. 400 pages. Wrappers. 500 copies printed.Presentation copy from the author, inscribed on the first blank: ''To Gerald in memory of pleasant ways and pleasant days always - Gertrude. Paris, February 26/36.'' The recipient is Lord Berners (1883-1950) the British aesthete, composer, writer and wit, whose home Faringdon House was frequented by a wide range of artistic luminaries, including Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Igor Stravinsky, Oliver Messel, Cecil Beaton, the Mitfords, H.G. Wells, Tom Driberg, the Sitwells, Constant Lambert, William Walton and many others. Stein and Berners collaborated on the ballet A Wedding Bouquet based on a text by the former and set to music by the latter; the choreography was by Frederick Ashton. The 1931 play included in this collection, They Must. Be Wedded. To their Wife, is the only one which has manuscript markings, these being underlinings which presumably marked texts for use in the ballet. The presentation inscription must date from the period when Stein and Berners were in active collaborations, as the ballet was first produced in 1937 at the Royal Opera House.Gatherings loose. Text block coming away from backstrip. Backstrip defective. Lacking the slipcase, of course. A less than beautiful copy, but a significant association.

Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom

Stein, Gertrude. OPERAS AND PLAYS. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.

Price: US$2000.00 + shipping

Description: Association first edition, inscribed by Alice Toklas to author Elizabeth Sprigge, who would publish one of the earliest formal biographies of Stein in 1957 - and which Toklas repudiated. After Stein's death, Alice Toklas stewarded Stein's posthumous literary reputation, both assisting editors of new editions of Stein's texts and providing assistance (or obstacles, as the case may be) to biographers. At the time of this book's inscription, novelist Elizabeth Sprigge was working on her first biography, about the Modernist Swedish author August Strindberg, that would be favorably reviewed for its "remarkably accurate and clear treatment of a controversial figure" (Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 22 No. 1, 28). Toklas's inscription here - "In memory of the author and the understanding of her work" - suggests that Toklas was, in 1948, open to the possibility that Sprigge could view Stein in a similar way. Indeed, Toklas was impressed by Sprigge's biography of Strindberg upon its release the next year, and she initially supported Sprigge's idea of writing a biography of Stein because of it. In 1953, Toklas wrote her own editor at Harper to provide a connection for Sprigge to publish her planned biography of Stein; it was, Toklas's biographer remarked, "a recommendation that Alice came to regret" (Simon, 283). As Sprigge continued gathering material for the biography, it became clear that she intended to "include personal details [.] a practice Alice would not allow" (Simon, 284). Toklas warned off friends whom Sprigge was contacting and, in 1956, argued at length with Sprigge regarding the content of the biography - especially her own role in it. Toklas argued she herself "had no place in the book except, perhaps, as the editor of the Plain Edition" (Simon, 284), Stein and Toklas's short-lived small press that published this book, OPERAS AND PLAYS. Harper ultimately published Sprigge's GERTRUDE STEIN: HER LIFE AND WORK in 1957, much to Toklas's dismay. Printed in a run of only 500 copies, OPERAS AND PLAYS was the fourth book of five that Stein and Toklas's Plain Editions imprint issued. Stein had by this time become frustrated by the limitations of getting her work accepted by mainstream publishers and decided to take the means in hand herself: to raise funds for the establishment and operation of the press, Stein famously sold her Picasso painting "Woman with a Fan" (Dydo, 418). A scarce Stein text, in a copy rich with implications on the question of a writer's control over their own works and life. 7.25'' x 5.25''. Original tan printed wrappers. In original ten printed slipcase. 400, [2] pages. Inscribed by Toklas in brown ink to first leaf: "To Elizabeth Sprigge, / In memory of the author and the understanding of her work / Alice Toklas / Paris - Bastille Day - 48." Slipcase with significant soil and staining to top edge, toning to spine. Wrappers with slight bowing at corners, toned spine with central crease, tiny closed tear to top front joint.

Seller: Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.

STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Paris Maurice Darantière for Plain Edition August, 1932.

Price: US$3025.00 + shipping

Description: First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author, one of 500 copies of Alice B. Toklas imprint; small 4to; light toning to leaves, otherwise unmarked internally; original tan wrappers printed in black, housed in the original tan slipcase, light toning and soiling; a pleasing copy. One of 500 copies, this one inscribed by the author to Colette. The presentation inscription reads: 'a Colette et Robert Jouvenel, in memory of the pleasant days in Paris and the charming country in which she was born[.] Gertrude Stein'. Operas and Plays, a collection of 22 of Stein's dramatic works written between 1913 and 1931, was the penultimate title issued by Plain Edition, the publishers which Stein co-founded with Alice Toklas in 1930.

Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom