was Anita Loos’s first novel and became a surprise bestseller. A satiric and highly comic fiction, it takes the form of the diary of a semi-literate but dangerously attractive gold-digger, Lorelei Lee.
The unforgettable “Lorelei style” is the novel’s primary achievement, and was responsible for the acclaim which it received. Edith Wharton described Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as “the great American novel” James Joyce spent three days lying on a sofa and reading it; William Empson wrote a poem inspired by the book; Aldous Huxley said that he was “enraptured” by it; and Rose Macaulay described it as “probably the funniest book that has appeared in England or America”. But other early readers, notably Wyndham Lewis and QD Leavis, disparaged the book
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Citation: Hammill, Faye. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4989, accessed 24 November 2024.]
