The first publisher of Tender Buttons described the book's effect on readers as ""something like terror, there are no known precedents to cling to."" This edition of Gertrude Stein's transformative work immerses the text in its cultural context. The most opaque of modernist texts, Tender Buttons also had modernism's most voluminous and varied response.

"Geography and Plays" is an exceptional representation of Gertrude Stein's genius. In this idiosyncratic collection, you'll find delightful short stories ("Ada," "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene") and cultural meditations ("France," "Italians") as well as plays which defy easy categorization and all the rules ("Bonne Annee," "What Happened"). Everything herein displays Stein to be an artist who challenged convention, meaning, expectation and logic. Her writing here is consistently assured, often cryptic, just as often fun, and never pompous or without purpose.