SOURCE: France, Richard. “Virgil Thomson/Gertrude Stein: A Correspondence.” Theatre History Studies 6 (1986): 72-86.

In the following essay, France discusses Stein's relationship with composer Virgil Thomson, featuring a series of selected letters to each other.

In December of 1925, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) invited the American composer, George Antheil, to visit with her and Alice B. Toklas at 26, rue de Fleurus. Antheil, in turn, invited fellow composer Virgil Thomson (b. 1896) to accompany him. Thus began a friendship between Thomson and Stein that would last, despite its frequent tensions and several interruptions, until her death on 27 July 1946.

Their correspondence, which numbers in excess of 300 letters, began with a postcard from Thomson during the summer of 1926. It would end abruptly with a letter dated 1 July 1946 from the terminally ill Stein in which she announces that she and Toklas “will be going away [to Bernard Faÿ's country house at Luceau] for a month...