Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady is a comic novel written by Anita Loos, first published in 1925. It is one of several famous novels published that year to chronicle the so-called Jazz Age, including Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and Van Vechten's "Firecrackers". Loos was inspired to write the book after watching a sexy blonde turn intellectual H. L. Mencken into a lovestruck schoolboy. Mencken, a close friend, actually enjoyed the work and saw to it that it was published. Originally published as a magazine series in "Harper's Bazaar", it was published
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel) as a book by Boni & Liveright in 1925 and became a runaway best seller, becoming the second best selling title of 1926 and earning the praise of no less than Edith Wharton who dubbed it "The Great American Novel." A sequel, "But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes", was published two years later. Responding to a male friend’s suggestion that she should write down her thoughts because it would make an interesting book, the blonde Lorelei Lee narrates the novel in the form of a diary complete with spelling and grammatical errors. Lorelei Lee had been working in movies in Hollywood when