Portraits and Prayers.

A collection of early essays and word portraits by the American writer Gertrude Stein. Her subjects often provide a description of what she observed in her Saturday salons.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) abandoned her undergraduate studies in 1903 and followed her brother, Leo to Paris . A few years later she met Alice B. Toklas, who would remain her companion for 40 years. Not only was Stein an innovator in literature and a supporter of modern poetry and art, she was the friend and mentor of those who visited her at home, including: Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Guillaume Apollinaire.