New York: Claire Marie, 1914.

First edition. Octavo. 78pp. Publisher’s original yellow paper covered boards, with a circular two-tone green title label to front board.

A controversial landmark of the Modernist movement, Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons is a challenging work of experimental prose poetry arranged as an object lessons guide, of sorts. The book is divided into three sections: Objects, Food, and Rooms, with short prose poems on the seeming mundanities of domesticity and the daily routine of food preparation.

Stein has infused the ordinary domestic life with abstruse observations about common objects, using unfamiliar, provocative, and sensual word choices and juxtapositions that upon careful consideration reveal intimate details of the relationship between Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, and their private life together.

The striking minimalist design of Tender Buttons was by Stein’s request and to reflect the Cubist nature of the work. It is an extraordinary and difficult work and seen as a foundational work of modernist poetry and queer literature, in our opinion best read from multiple vantage points, and also out loud and to hear the building of rhythm and energy in the descriptions.

Some grubbiness and discolouration to the boards particularly at edges and with light incidental wear, with minor restoration to enforce the chipped spine panel by conservator Abigail Bainbridge and in a green cloth box she built for it. Internally clean. A very good copy of a fragile and incredibly scarce piece of indispensable literature.