 Makes the case for the pre-eminent contribution of a handful of women to the life and art of the Left Bank between the two world wars and before the Great War as well. Gertrude Stein brings Picasso, Mattisse, and others under her wing, with Alice B. Toklas as her muse. Adrienne Monnier opens a book shop at 23, making it a lending library so that women with little pocket money have access to books. Sylvia Beach, her companion, models Shakespeare and Co. on Monnier s shop. Natalie Barney s Friday literary salon is a 12-year fixture. Janet Flanner writes her "Letter from France" for the New Yorker, chronicling these women and the Left Bank. Scholars and aging participants comment.