Beschrijving

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies – Literature, grade: 1,0, Dresden Technical University (Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Writing and Rewriting American Autobiography, language: English, abstract: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, published in 1933, was the first book of Gertrude Stein to receive wide public attention and become a commercial success. Though the title declares Alice B. Toklas the alleged subject of the autobiography, it is in fact the story of Gertrude Stein¿s life. Until the composition of The Autobiography, Stein¿s work had only been supported by a small circle and had been rejected by the Anglo-American press and publishers. The unprecedented success of her autobiography has mainly been attributed to its reader-friendly language which stood in sharp contrast to the experimental nature of her earlier writing which seized the understanding of many. But there is a second reason for the sudden triumph of her writing. Around the turn of the century, the interest in the author-figure increased significantly and with it the number of writer¿s autobiographies. According to Louis Kaplan’s bibliography of American autobiographies, between 1880 and 1920 only 113 autobiographies were written by journalists or authors. In the following twenty years, \