SOURCE: A review of Three Lives, in The Nation, New York, Vol. 90, January 20, 1910, p. 65.

In the following review, the critic finds Three Lives difficult but rewarding and notes that Stein shows great promise as a writer.

These stories [in Three Lives] of the Good Anna, Melanctha, and the Gentle Lena have a quite extraordinary vitality conveyed in a most eccentric and difficult form. The half-articulated phrases follow unrelentingly the blind mental and temperamental gropings of three humble souls wittingly or unwittingly at odds with life. Whoever can adjust himself to the repetitions, false starts, and general circularity of the manner will find himself very near real people. Too near, possibly. The present writer had an uncomfortable sense of being immured with a girl wife, a spinster, and a woman who is neither, between imprisoning walls which echoed exactly all thoughts and feelings. These stories utterly lack construction and...