Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Paperback

by Anita Loos (Author), Marlowe Granados (Introduction by)

The literary classic that inspired the iconic Marilyn Monroe film--a brilliant satire of the Roaring Twenties that follows a wide-eyed blonde and her cynical brunette friend as they take Europe by storm, now with an introduction by Marlowe Granados to celebrate the book's 100th anniversary!

"Cheeky . . . the zany surrealism of the Marx Brothers crossed with the desire--both sexual and material--of Sex and the City."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

Some might call Lorelei Lee lucky. Others, names she would not even put in her diary. Life in New York is becoming routine, so when her wealthy companion Mr. Eisman suggests that "a girl with brains ought to do something else with them besides think," Lorelei is up to the challenge.

Accompanied by her best friend Dorothy Shaw, Lorelei chronicles the sights and people of Europe in her diary in a consistent mix of hilarity and accidental wisdom--"Paris is divine" and "London is really nothing at all." Reliant on the good graces of the gentlemen around them to stay afloat as they await Eisman's arrival on the continent, Lorelei and Dorothy skirt unscathed and at times oblivious around scorned and greedy lovers, plots of Francophone thievery, and even murder charges.

This hilarious, rip-roaring travelogue is a sharp-eyed takedown of the hypocrisy of Prohibition, the Roaring Twenties, and anyone foolish enough to stake their wallet on the dumb blonde stereotype. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is more than a guilty pleasure--it is a literary classic.

Author Biography

Anita Loos was an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and actress. Born in 1889, she was writing movie scripts by the time she was twelve and became the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood at the age of twenty-five. She is best known for her 1925 comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which made her a Jazz Age celebrity in her own right. She also wrote the screenplay for the classic film The Women (1939), as well as a Broadway production of Colette's Gigi (1951). Loos died in 1981.