Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

by Anita Loos and Loos Anita

Book Overview

"Kissing your hand may make you feel very very good, but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever."

Anita Loos first published the diaries of the gold-digging blonde Lorelei Lee in the flapper days of 1925, forging a new archetype for the modern world. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes follows Lorelei and her best friend, Dorothy, from Hollywood to Manhattan to Paris and London, pursued by eager suitors all the while. In "the Central...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141180692
• ISBN13: 9780141180694
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

1983 Vintage Books edition.

Ever since its first appearance in 1925, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the hilarious saga of Lorelei Lee, "a professional lady" (the profession is gold-digging), has been recognised as an American classic. James Joyce, William Faulkner, H. L. Mencken and George Santayana were among its early fans. But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, which followed in 1928, was instantly hailed "a masterpiece of comic literature." Here are the two in one volume, together with the author's 1963 introduction to a new edition of Blondes. --- from book's back cover.

Utterly entertaining

This is a great little book (actually, two books in one). I laughed put loud throughout it and hoped that it would never end. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is rightly considered a classic, its sharp and bitingly witty insight is something one never seems to see in a book today (indeed, humour in a book today seems to be rare - sometimes it seems that all new fiction books are depressing and morbid; and if you feel this way too then you should read Loos' clever and refreshing novels). This is a classuc that you will want to read over and over.

Classic humor!

I adored this book! I purchased it because I'd seen both of the movies, but the book is so much wittier! I'd recommend it to anyone with an extremely sophisticated sense of humor, otherwise it would be hard to understand - not for lightweights!

just a funny book

I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very, very good but a diamond-and-safire bracelet lasts forever. -Lorelei Lee, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Up until now, I'd figured that the most ignominious fate that a significant 20th century writer had suffered was that T. S. Eliot will be best remembered for the fact that a book of his poems inspired the musical Cats. Here's a worse one : Anita Loos, author of one of the funniest novels ever written, may be remembered as the author whose book inspired the musical which inspired the music video of Madonna's Material Girl. This after all is a book which while it was being serialized made Harper's Bazaar into a best-selling magazine, went through 45 editions in 13 languages (including Chinese and Russian) upon publication, which Edith Wharton referred to as "the great American novel," which a nearly blind James Joyce chose as his preferred reading during the brief period he was allotted each day, and which won praise from readers as varied as Winston Churchill, William Faulkner, George Santayana, and Benito Mussolini. Even before she wrote this story, Anita Loos had already established herself as a topflight Hollywood screenwriter, working with the likes of D. W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, and she numbered H. L. Mencken among her many literary friends. In fact, the book is at least in part intended to poke fun at Mencken. Loos had previously noticed, with some amusement, the intellectually snobbish writer's contradictory weakness for ditzy blonde babes. So when she found herself traveling cross country on the Santa Fe Chief with her husband (the director John Emerson), Fairbanks, several other gentlemen and one blonde starlet, she was struck by the fact that the men stumbled over themselves trying to help the other woman, while Ms Loos was left to lug her own baggage: Obviously there was some radical difference between that girl and me. But what was it? We were both in the pristine years of early youth; we were about the same degree of comeliness; as to our mental acumen, there was nothing to discuss : I was the smarter. Then why did that girl so far outdistance me in feminine allure? She was a natural blonde and I was a brunette. Loos promptly began writing the first notes for what would become the hilarious adventures of Lorelei Lee, the flighty but conniving blonde to whom "Fate keeps on happening," and, when finished, sent them to Mencken, who was then editing The American Mercury. He told her, "Little girl, you're making fun of sex, and that's never been clone before in the U.S.A.," but also suggested that she submit the story to Harper's Bazaar. The editor, Henry Sell, liked the initial story so much that he got her to write several more installments and serialized them in the magazine. The rest, as they say, is history... The resulting novel reminds me a great deal of Ring Lardner's You

clever, funny, glamarous

It was fun to read about Lorelie's meeting with "Dr.Froyd" and her thoughts of "the Eyefull tower", but mostly it was fun to be wrapped up in the fickle days of the flapper. Hysterical and fun to read, not to mention important in terms of it's impact of literature. (Would there ever have been a Bridget Jones without a Loerlei or Dorthey?) Enjoy!