Gertrude Stein's first writing experiment was entitled Q.E.D. Based on autobiographical material, this early
novella was about a love triangle among three American upper-middle-class
women. They obsess over how to be free without being shunned
by respectable society as freaks.
After finishing Q.E.D. in 1903, she put
it in a drawer. She considered the manuscript unpublishable, a therapeutic exercise,
written mainly to get over a rejection by a lover. In 1931, however, her friend and lover Alice B.
Toklas found it. When she figured out its subject matter, she got mad,
took Q.E.D. away from Gertrude and kept it hidden until after Gertrude's death.
