The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

*The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas... is not an autobiography by Alice Toklas, Stein's companion from 1907 to her death, but a funny, innovative memoir which pays unusual attention to the 'wives of geniuses' as well as the 'geniuses' themselves. It focuses on the Paris years, mythologizing the Stein-Toklas household and presenting Stein as the writing member of an international art movement that starred Picasso. A lot of what we remember about Paris in the 1920s comes from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Along the way Stein tells some stories about her past which are, according to her biographer James Mellow, streamlined versions of the truth. -Phyllis Rose in The Norton Book of Women's Lives