Three Lives (1909) was Gertrude Stein's first published work of fiction.

Anna is a German immigrant who keeps house for Miss Mathilda and falls in love with another woman, Mrs. Lehntman. Lena is also a German woman who marries badly and dies in childbirth. Melanctha is a mulatto woman with unhappy love affairs. All three, however, face their various disappointments and their lots in life with resignation and acceptance. Two quotes from Gertrude Stein's works have become widely known: "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" and "there is no there there", with the latter often taken to be a reference to her childhood home of Oakland, California.