COPY

February 17, 1933.

Dear Mr Lane,

As THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS has been in my
hands here, I am answering your favor of the sixth of February addres-
sed to Mr Brace. I think we can congratulate each other on having the
opportunity to publish this extraordinary interesting volume. I am su-
re it will attract unusual attention.

The handling of the material in this country has been some
what complicated by an arrangement Ellery Sedgwick of the Atlantic
Monthly has made with the author to publish extracts from the manus-
cript in four installments during the coming summer. I can see his re-
asons for feeling that separate installments of this material would
be pointless without the author's name, and I have agreed to his usi-
g Miss Stein's name with each installment that he serializes. This will
of course, make the authorship of the book an open secret in America,
and of course it is an open secret as soon as any one has finished the
manuscript. I think, however, that the sensible thing to do is to pr-
int the manuscript just as it came to us, calling it THE AUTOBIO-
GRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS on the title page and without Gertrude
Stein's name as author. This would tend to make the book somewhat of
a literary curiosity, and I am inclined to ignore the difficulties of
cataloguers for the sake of the interest the author's own arrangement
will provoke. When the time comes, we shall attempt to phrase what we
say on the jacket of the book so that any reader will be aware that we
know who the author is.

Are you going to use illustrations on your side? Miss Stein
has sent us some twenty photographs, which, while not of quite the
best for reproduction, will do well enough for that purpose and are
most excellent illustrative material covering people, works of art,
and scenes mentioned in the manuscript. I suggest that if you plan to
illustrate the volume, you ask her for duplicates of these. We are pl-
anning to make the volume rather handsome with illustrations and to
publish at about $3.00.

I have suggested to the author's agent, W.A.BRADLEY, that
you put the book into type in England, and that the author read your
proofs and send us a duplicate set with her corrections. This will ob-
viate her reading two sets of proofs and will make both British and
American editions uniform. If you agree to this, I hope you will be
putting the book into type rether promptly, as we shall want to have
complete books by the early summer for our salesmen to carry with them.