Mentor and guide to the Lost Generation of expatriate American writers, including Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein (1874&;1946) is perhaps better known for her Parisian salon than her literary works. Yet her innovative approach to writing and her originality of thought make the impact of her books on contemporary literature enormous.

Tender Buttons, published in 1914, is vintage Stein. She pushes abstraction to its farthest limits by experimenting with words purely as words in a style...