<p>''A total joy to read.'' <b>SARAH BAKEWELL</b><br>''Thrillingly intelligent and original . . . A breakthrough in biographical form.'' <b>EDMUND GORDON</b><br>''A discerning literary biography and a page-turning whodunit.'' <b>LISA APPIGNANESI</b><br>''I feel like I''ve been waiting for this book my whole life.'' <b>SHEILA HETI</b><b><br><br>From the celebrated author of <i>Square Haunting </i>comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells.</b><br><br>¿Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me,¿ wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding ¿ and contested ¿ writers of the twentieth century.<br><br>In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso¿s portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her
