It's fitting that Alice B. Toklas, 'wife' and literary impresario of Gertrude Stein, should be the subject of a biography . . . and this is a good one, sensitive and lively. . . . it's clear from this portrait that through her possessive affection she not only had a dominant influence on Stein's life but (for good or ill) on her highly idiosyncratic prose. With her acid tongue, shrewd judgment, vitality, and intense loyalty she was a fairly remarkable person in her-self."--Publishers Weekly. "Linda Simon writes beautifully of Alice's early years in California, of her Polish-Jewish family, of her growing alienation from her surroundings and gravitation toward artists, of her awareness of the isolating burden homosexuality would force on her. . . . entertaining, thoroughly researched. and well-written. . . .with a clear gaze fixed on undistorted truth."--Saturday Review. "A study that shows Toklas as she must have been, not 'Miss Stein's obedient shadow,'. . . but a multifaceted and complex creature with her own tastes and standards. . . . [her story] is an emotionally stirring experience."--Washington Post Book World. Linda Simon, in her preface to this Bison Book edition, calls Alice B. Toklas "a woman who, through a mixture of determination and good luck, invented a new narrative for her life" at a time when options for women were few. Simon is the author of Thornton Wilder: His World (1979), Good Writing (1988), and other books. She is now working on a biography of William James.