Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a comic novel that follows the escapades and dalliances of a young blonde flapper in New York City and Europe. Loos was inspired to write the novel by an incident aboard a train bound for Hollywood: “I was allowed to lug heavy suitcases from their racks while men sat about and failed to note my efforts,” she recalled, and yet, when another young woman “happened to drop the novel she was reading, several men jumped to retrieve it.” Loos surmised this difference in men’s behavior was because she was a brunette, and the other woman was a blonde. Originally published as a series of short sketches known as “the Lorelei stories” in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, the work was published in book form in 1925. Although dismissed by critics as “too light in texture to be very enduring, Loos’ book was a runaway best seller, becoming the second-best selling title of 1926, and printed throughout the world in over thirteen different languages, including Chinese. The book earned the praise of many writers including Edith Wharton who dubbed it “the great American novel.”

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