Gertrude STEIN was an American author, poet, playwright, and art collector who wrote the novel Three Lives. Published in 1909, it was her first commercially successful work and is considered to be a landmark of modernist literature. The novel follows the lives of three women living in a small town in the United States and explores themes of identity, gender, and class. STEIN's writing style was unique and often experimental, making use of repetition and fragmentation.