A Village. Are You Ready Yet Not Yet

Paris: Éditions de la Galerie Simon, 1928. First edition, number 20 of 90 copies on verge d’Arches paper from an edition of 102, signed by the author and illustrator. 4to (246 x 192mm). [1-6] 7-18 [19-22] pages, final blank. Illustrated with seven lithographs by Elie Lascaux. Original buff printed wrappers, edges untrimmed (without the glassine). Some light soiling to wrappers, generally fine. Provenance: unidentified booklabel. One of two books by Stein published by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the other being A Book Concluding with As a Wife Has a Cow, illustrated by Juan Gris (1926). Stein's writing of A Village followed her work on "An Elucidation", (truncated) a challenging work of discontinuous reading. A Village Are You Ready Yet Not Yet is less of an assemblage and more unified in its scope. It was written during her period in St. Rémy, when she was favoring the structure of the quartet. "A Village Are You Ready Yet Not Yet" records the discussions of four villages. See Richard Bridgman, Gertrude Stein in Pieces, 1970 p. 171 and Ulla E. Dydo (with William Rice), Gertrude Stein: The Language that Rises, 2003, p.47. Wilson A11a. (Inventory #: 410421)