The Making of Americans

Name: The Making of Americans
Price: 39.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781628974669

Gertrude Stein, William Gass, Steven Meyer

$39.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Miscellaneous
16 December 2025

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Sagas

Series: Dalkey Essentials Series

Gertrude Stein's monumental novel, back in print a century after its first publication.

In The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein sets out to tell 'a history of a family's progress,' radically reworking the traditional family saga novel to encompass her vision of personality and psychological relationships. As the history progresses over three generations, Stein also meditates on her own writing, on the making of The Making of Americans, and on America.

'The Making of Americanspresents a no less radical challenge to the realist novel's concept of character thanFinnegans Wake, written twenty-eight years later; in this respect, it also predates the formal innovations of Samuel Beckett'sThe Unnamableand Alain Robbe-Grillet'sJealousyby over four decades.'

Bookforum

'Indubitably the most monumental fiction to be given since the publication ofUlysses.'

Saturday Review of Literature

'This sober, tender-hearted, very searching history of a family's progress, comprehends in its picture of life which is distinctively American, a psychology which is universal.'

Marianne Moore,Dial

'The Making of Americansis the first announcement of what would be Stein's greatest legacy

to reclaim the world of the nineteenth-century woman from such weird, smutty interlopers as Flaubert and, later, Joyce, and transform it into the most exalted ground of human potentiality available to us... It is monumental, horribly flawed, and a joy to read if you just give up and drown in it.'

Matthew Stadler, The Stranger

By: Gertrude Stein
Foreword by: William Gass
Introduction by: Steven Meyer
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781628974669
ISBN 10: 1628974664
Series: Dalkey Essentials Series
Publication Date: 16 December 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was born in Pittsburgh to a prosperous German-Jewish family. She was educated in France and the United States, worked under the pioneering psychologist William James, and later studied medicine. With her brother Leo she was an important patron of the arts, acquiring works by many contemporary artists, most famously Picasso, while her home became a popular meeting place for writers and painters from Matisse to Hemingway. Her books include Three Lives, Tender Buttons, and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

Reviews for The Making of Americans

“This sober, tender-hearted, very searching history of a family’s progress, comprehends in its picture of life which is distinctively American, a psychology which is universal.”—Marianne Moore, Dial “The Making of Americans is the first announcement of what would be Stein’s greatest legacy—to reclaim the world of the nineteenth-century woman from such weird, smutty interlopers as Flaubert and, later, Joyce, and transform it into the most exalted ground of human potentiality available to us. . . . It is monumental, horribly flawed, and a joy to read if you just give up and drown in it.”—Matthew Stadler, The Stranger “Indubitably the most monumental fiction to be given since the publication of Ulysses.”—Saturday Review of Literature