- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (25 Feb 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141180692
- ISBN-13: 978-0141180694
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13.1 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 346,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Lorelei Lee is just a little girl from Little Rock who takes the world by storm and teaches its gentlemen that "kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever". Anita Loos first published the diaries of the ultimate gold-digging blonde in the flapper days of 1925 and even Edith Wharton had to agree: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is "the great American novel".
Blondes follows Lorelei and her best friend Dorothy from Hollywood to Manhattan to the capitals of Europe, pursued by eager suitors all the while. ("Paris is divine", she finds, but "London is really nothing".) In "the Central of Europe", with a new diamond tiara in her handbag, she meets a traveling American millionaire who just might be the one. So she retires her diary, but not for long, because, as she writes in the opening pages of But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, "it is bright ideas that keep home fires burning, and prevent a divorce from taking all of the bloom off Romance".
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and its brunette sequel are together at last in a two-in-one volume, beautifully reset, with the original hilarious Ralph Barton illustrations restored throughout. Feminist humor maven, Regina Barreca, provides an introduction to what George Santyana once (smilingly) called, "the best philosophical work by an American".
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is virtually unrecognisable from the film of the same name. I like them both but I loved the novel. Lorelei is wonderful as a kind of knowing ingenue. Scratch the surface faux sophistication and there's a no nonsense survivor under there. Her desire for intellectual stimulation is hilarious and her social gaffes to die for. It is written in the form of a diary which makes it intimate and appealing and despite her idiocies you end up rooting for her. she's a marvel. Bringing out the novels as a package works well as I think Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is the stronger of the two works and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes works best as a companion piece.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've lost count of how many times I've read this now, but every single time it has me helpless with laughter. Lorelei Lee, the faux-naive heroine, is one of the greatest comic characters in literature, right up there with Myra Breckinridge. I became so obsessed with GPB at one point that I even started writing my own diary in the manner of Lorelei; it just seems to happen that way. If you haven't read this, or have only seen the movie (which is fun, but nothing like the real thing) then READ IT NOW, especially if it's reissued in an affordable package including both novels.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond bracelet lasts forever." So says Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes." With the emergence of Lorelei, Anita Loos invented the chick-lit genre as we know it, with witty looks at love, jewelry, and gold-digging in the sparkling 1920s.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is the diary of Lorelei Lee, a pretty young flapper originally from Little Rock. Since she has managed to get engaged to a married man, and might be hit with a scandal, Lorelei goes overseas. She cuts a gold-digging swathe through Europe, dazzling wealthy men, seeing the "Eyefull" Tower, and recording thoughts both witty and vapid.
Loos followed up her hit novel with "But Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes." The sequel is the story of Lorelei's travelling buddy Dorothy, as told by Lorelei. Dorothy has led a more colorful life -- she started off in the circus before heading to NYC. There, she became a Ziegfield Follies Girl, and then a "companion" to wealthy men.
Anita Loos's "Gentlemen" books first started when Loos encountered a starlet who had men tripping over themselves to help her with her things. Loos was as pretty, as young, and much smarter, but nobody helped her. What was different? Loos was a brunette, and the starlet was a blonde. You do the math.
Loos had a fun, deft sense of humor. She skewered flappers and/or gold-diggers, wealthy men, and the social mores of the 1920s. She also deliberately litters her books with misspellings and run-on sentences, adding to the feeling of overal ditziness. At the same time, her books are such good light fun that they can be read without taking note of the satire.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" gives a wink-nudge look at the flapper era, while giving us the origins of the present-day lite chick-lit genre. Fun, fluffy and amusing.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is the diary of Lorelei Lee, a pretty young flapper originally from Little Rock. Since she has managed to get engaged to a married man, and might be hit with a scandal, Lorelei goes overseas. She cuts a gold-digging swathe through Europe, dazzling wealthy men, seeing the "Eyefull" Tower, and recording thoughts both witty and vapid.
Loos followed up her hit novel with "But Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes." The sequel is the story of Lorelei's travelling buddy Dorothy, as told by Lorelei. Dorothy has led a more colorful life -- she started off in the circus before heading to NYC. There, she became a Ziegfield Follies Girl, and then a "companion" to wealthy men.
Anita Loos's "Gentlemen" books first started when Loos encountered a starlet who had men tripping over themselves to help her with her things. Loos was as pretty, as young, and much smarter, but nobody helped her. What was different? Loos was a brunette, and the starlet was a blonde. You do the math.
Loos had a fun, deft sense of humor. She skewered flappers and/or gold-diggers, wealthy men, and the social mores of the 1920s. She also deliberately litters her books with misspellings and run-on sentences, adding to the feeling of overal ditziness. At the same time, her books are such good light fun that they can be read without taking note of the satire.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" gives a wink-nudge look at the flapper era, while giving us the origins of the present-day lite chick-lit genre. Fun, fluffy and amusing.
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