Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

Author Anita Loos
Illustrated by Ralph Barton
Introduction by Regina Barreca
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“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 of Europe,” with a new diamond tiara in her handbag, Lorelei meets a traveling American millionaire who just might be the one. 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 the home fires burning, and prevent a divorce from taking all of the bloom off Romance.”

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Anita Loos was born in California in 1888. She began writing movie scripts and supplied film scenarios for D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks. First published in 1925, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a best-seller in thirteen languages and was followed by its sequel, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. Anita Loos was the author of the novels A Mouse is Born and No Mother to Guide Her and two volumes of autobiography, A Girl Like I and Kiss Hollywood Good-by. She died in 1981. View titles by Anita Loos

About

“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 of Europe,” with a new diamond tiara in her handbag, Lorelei meets a traveling American millionaire who just might be the one. 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 the home fires burning, and prevent a divorce from taking all of the bloom off Romance.”

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author

Anita Loos was born in California in 1888. She began writing movie scripts and supplied film scenarios for D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks. First published in 1925, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a best-seller in thirteen languages and was followed by its sequel, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. Anita Loos was the author of the novels A Mouse is Born and No Mother to Guide Her and two volumes of autobiography, A Girl Like I and Kiss Hollywood Good-by. She died in 1981. View titles by Anita Loos