Beautiful and Damned (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (2 page)
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Authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald
BOOK: Beautiful and Damned (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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After the birth of their daughter, Scottie, the Fitzgeralds lived a peripatetic life for many years, settling in Europe for periods and then residing in America. In Paris Fitzgerald met Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriate writers, whom Gertrude Stein was to dub the “lost generation.”
In 1925 Fitzgerald published his masterpiece,
The Great Gatsby.
Written while the author was living in the French Riviera, the story of the parvenu Jay Gatsby was more a critical success than a financial one, and Fitzgerald continued to support his extravagant lifestyle through frequent, and well-paid, magazine contributions. But his literary fortunes changed following publication of
The Great Gatsby.
Although he published a collection of short stories in 1926, he did not produce another book until 1934, when
Tender Is the Night,
on which he had labored for years, was published. Meanwhile, his domestic life deteriorated as he sank deeper into alcoholism and Zelda became increasingly unstable. Zelda’s emotional collapse in 1930 was precipitated by maniacally intense ballet studies; the remaining years of her life were spent in and out of hospitals.
The Great Gatsby.
Written while the author was living in the French Riviera, the story of the parvenu Jay Gatsby was more a critical success than a financial one, and Fitzgerald continued to support his extravagant lifestyle through frequent, and well-paid, magazine contributions. But his literary fortunes changed following publication of
The Great Gatsby.
Although he published a collection of short stories in 1926, he did not produce another book until 1934, when
Tender Is the Night,
on which he had labored for years, was published. Meanwhile, his domestic life deteriorated as he sank deeper into alcoholism and Zelda became increasingly unstable. Zelda’s emotional collapse in 1930 was precipitated by maniacally intense ballet studies; the remaining years of her life were spent in and out of hospitals.
Tender Is the Night
was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews from the critics. Fitzgerald spent the years following its publication drunk and dissolute; he chronicled this period in the “Crack-Up” essays. As his literary fame diminished, he worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter and wrote short stories; in 1939 he began work on his final novel,
The Last Tycoon,
which detailed Hollywood life. By then he was living with Sheilah Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. On December 21, 1940, before
The Last Tycoon
was completed, F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
The Last Tycoon
was published in 1941; its writing style is considered as fine as the best of Fitzgerald’s other work.
was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews from the critics. Fitzgerald spent the years following its publication drunk and dissolute; he chronicled this period in the “Crack-Up” essays. As his literary fame diminished, he worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter and wrote short stories; in 1939 he began work on his final novel,
The Last Tycoon,
which detailed Hollywood life. By then he was living with Sheilah Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. On December 21, 1940, before
The Last Tycoon
was completed, F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
The Last Tycoon
was published in 1941; its writing style is considered as fine as the best of Fitzgerald’s other work.
THE WORLD OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED
| 1896 | Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, the only son of Edward, a genteel, unsuccessful factory owner, and Mary (“Mollie”) McQuillan, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became a successful wholesale grocer in St. Paul. He is named after his father’s distant cousin, the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” |
| 1898 | Commercial failures force Edward to move his family to Buffalo, New York, where he takes a sales job with Proctor and Gamble. |
| 1899 | Sigmund Freud publishes Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams); the first edition carries the publication date 1900. |
| 1901 | Edward Fitzgerald is relocated with his family to Syracuse, New York. |
| 1905 | Albert Einstein publishes significant physics papers, including one on the special theory of relativity. |
| 1907 | Artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque begin to develop cubism, an important new visual arts style. |
| 1908 | Edward Fitzgerald loses his job at Procter and Gamble, and the family returns to St. Paul, where they are supported by Mollie’s inheritance. F. Scott Fitzgerald enters St. Paul’s Academy. |
| 1909 | Scott’s first published story, “The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage,” appears in his school journal. |
| 1911 | Scott enters the Newman School, an elite Catholic prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey. During his three years at Newman, he publishes three stories in the school literary magazine and writes and produces several plays. |
| 1912 | Scott meets Father Sigourney Fay and the Anglo-Irish |
| writer Shane Leslie, who both recognize and encourage his talents. C.G. Jung publishes Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (The Psychology of the Unconscious). | |
| 1913 | Fitzgerald graduates from the Newman School and is accepted at Princeton University, despite an unexceptional academic record. In August, a production of his play Coward sells out at the St. Paul Y.W.C.A. Auditorium. At Princeton, he befriends Edmund Wilson, who will become a critic and author, and John Peale Bishop, who will become a poet and novelist. Fitzgerald spends much of his time in extracurricularlishes activities, including writing scripts and lyrics for the Triangle Club, Princeton’s drama club. D. H. Lawrence pub- Sons and Lovers. |
| 1914 | World War I begins. |
| 1915 | Fitzgerald meets and falls in love with Ginevra King, a young girl from a wealthy Chicago family. His affair with Ginevra, who is possibly a model for some of his fictional characters, amounts to several dates and a ream of passionate letters. His extracurricular activities take a toll on his grades, and he leaves Princeton, ostensibly because of illness. Europe is engulfed by war. |
| 1916 | Fitzgerald returns to Princeton. |
| 1917 | His relationship with Ginevra dies down. In January, Fitzgerald publishes The Debutante, a play inspired by his affair with her, in the Nassau Literary Magazine. America declares war against Germany, and Fitzgerald enlists in the army as a second lieutenant. He is stationed in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and begins writing a novel, The Romantic Egotist. T. S. Eliot publishes Prufrock and Other Observations. |
| 1918 | On leave from the army, Fitzgerald returns to Princeton and completes his novel. His mentor, author Shane Leslie, recommends it to Scribner’s. Fitzgerald is stationed first in Kentucky, then Georgia, and then near Montgomery, Alabama, where he meets Zelda Sayre, the wayward daughter of an Alabama state Supreme Court judge. Although editor Maxwell Perkins rejects Fitzgerald’s novel, his letter contains praise for the work. World War I ends; Fitzgerald never sees active service. |
| 1919 | Fitzgerald is discharged from the army and becomes engaged to Zelda. Although he finds work at a New York advertising agency, Zelda breaks off their engagement, worried about his financial prospects. Fitzgerald returns to his parents’ house, where he rewrites his novel; now titled This Side of Paradise, it is accepted for publication by Scribner’s. Fitzgerald also sells his first story: “Babes in the Woods” is accepted for publication in The Smart Set. Prohibition begins. |
| 1920 | Fitzgerald and Zelda renew their engagement. He publishes stories in the Saturday Evening Post and The Smart Set. This Side of Paradise is published and goes through nine printings in its first year. Scott and Zelda are married in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The newlyweds move to Westport, Connecticut, where Fitzgerald works on The Beautiful and Damned, and then to New York. Flappers and Philosophers, Fitzgerald’s first collection of short stories, is published. Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, women gain the right to vote. |
| 1921 | Scott and Zelda spend months traveling in England, France, and Italy. They return in August to Minnesota, where Zelda gives birth to a daughter, Frances Scott (“Scottie”). |
| 1922 | The Beautiful and Damned, about the dissipated life of an artist and his wife, is published. Another collection of short stories, Tales of the Jazz Age, is published in September. The family moves to Great Neck, Long Island (New York). Fitzgerald’s drinking habit grows. T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and James Joyce’s Ulysses are published. |
| 1923 | The Vegetable, a play the Fitzgeralds thought would make them wealthy, is published but fails at an Atlantic City tryout. Jazz musician Duke Ellington first plays in New York. |
| 1924 | The family moves to the French Riviera, where Zelda has an affair with Edouard Jozan, a French pilot. Fitzgerald drafts his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. The Fitzgeralds befriend wealthy American expatriates Gerald and Sara Murphy. The Fitzgeralds spend several months in Rome. |
| 1925 | The Great Gatsby is published. Fitzgerald moves his family to Paris, where he meets Ernest Hemingway. Gangster Al Capone rises to the top of organized crime in Chicago. |
| 1926 | Fitzgerald publishes All the Sad Young Men, a collection of stories that includes one of his best, “The Rich Boy,” which examines how wealth influences character. The family spends most of the year in the Riviera, returning to America in December. Ernest Hemingway publishes The Sun Also Rises. |
| 1927 | Fitzgerald moves with Zelda to Hollywood, California, to write a screenplay. They move again, to Delaware, where Zelda begins ballet lessons. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is published. Charles Lindbergh completes the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. |
| 1928 | The Saturday Evening Post publishes “The Scandal Detectives,” the first of a series of stories based on Fitzgerald’s youth. The family moves again to Paris, where Zelda’s ballet training damages her health and leads to marital problems. The family returns to Delaware in the fall. |
| 1929 | Once again the family goes back to Europe. Zelda publishes “The Original Follies Girl” in College Humor. The American stock market crashes, and the Great Depression begins. |
| 1930 | In April, Zelda suffers the first of a series of nervous breakdowns and is admitted to a Paris clinic. In May, she goes to a sanatorium in Switzerland where she is diagnosed as schizophrenic. |
| 1931 | Fitzgerald travels alone to America to attend his father’s funeral. He accepts an offer from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to work on a screenplay in Hollywood. He returns to Europe and travels between Paris and Switzerland. In July the Swiss sanatorium releases Zelda. The Fitzgerald family returns to America in September. In December, Fitzgerald goes alone to Hollywood to work for Metro-GoldwynMayer. |
| 1932 | Zelda suffers another collapse and is hospitalized in Baltimore. She will be an inpatient or an outpatient at a sanatorium for the rest of her life. Fitzgerald moves to Baltimore to join his wife. Zelda publishes an autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, completed in the clinic. |
| 1933 | Prohibition ends. Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany. |
| Gertrude Stein publishes The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. | |
| 1934 | Zelda suffers a third breakdown and returns to the Baltimore clinic. Fitzgerald publishes Tender Is the Night, a novel about a psychiatrist in Europe who marries one of his patients and eventually unravels. Henry Miller publishes Tropic of Cancer in France. |
| 1935 | Taps at Reveille, Fitzgerald’s fourth short-story collection, is published. He moves back and forth between Baltimore, New York, and North Carolina. |
| 1936 | Fitzgerald’s confessional “Crack-Up” essays, which describe his sense of emotional depletion, appear in Esquire. |
| 1937 | Financially strained, Fitzgerald accepts a lucrative scriptwriting contract with MGM. In December, the six-month contract is renewed for one year. He starts writing the screenplay for Three Comrades, his only script to make it to film. He begins an affair with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham that will last until his death. |
| 1939 | Fitzgerald, whose MGM contract was not renewed at the end of 1938, starts work on a screenplay for United Artists but is fired after a drinking binge. Later that year he works as a freelance screenwriter in Hollywood. He starts The Last Tycoon, a novel about life in Hollywood. He is hospitalized twice following drinking bouts. World War II begins. |
| 1940 | With The Last Tycoon only half finished, F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack on December 21, in Graham’s Hollywood apartment. He is buried in the Rockville Union Cemetery in Maryland. |
| 1941 | The Last Tycoon is published. |
| 1945 | The Crack-Up is published. |
| 1948 | Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at a hospital in North Carolina. |
INTRODUCTION
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote
The Beautiful and Damned,
his second book, when he was only twenty-five. It was published in 1922, just as the Jazz Age was beginning to hit its stride. The war was over, the economy was booming, the skyscrapers were rising, the flappers were vamping, the alcohol was flowing (despite Prohibition), the music was swinging, and the party appeared to be never-ending. America was, as Fitzgerald later said, “going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history and there was going to be plenty to tell about it”
(The Crack-Up, with Other Pieces and Stories,
p. 59; see “For Further Reading”). Who better to chronicle the splendor of this new age than Fitzgerald, the man who since the rip-roaring success of his first novel had been called its most notorious voice?
The Beautiful and Damned,
his second book, when he was only twenty-five. It was published in 1922, just as the Jazz Age was beginning to hit its stride. The war was over, the economy was booming, the skyscrapers were rising, the flappers were vamping, the alcohol was flowing (despite Prohibition), the music was swinging, and the party appeared to be never-ending. America was, as Fitzgerald later said, “going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history and there was going to be plenty to tell about it”
(The Crack-Up, with Other Pieces and Stories,
p. 59; see “For Further Reading”). Who better to chronicle the splendor of this new age than Fitzgerald, the man who since the rip-roaring success of his first novel had been called its most notorious voice?
Although he was the poster boy for this extravagant age, with his second book Fitzgerald chose to focus not on the splendor of the era, but instead on its spoils, the ugly aftermath of the party.
The Beautiful and Damned
is a cautionary tale of a young, insouciant, and irresponsible couple, Anthony and Gloria Patch, and their inevitable downward spiral. In the beginning, they are carefree and happy, buoyed by their love for each other and the hope that Anthony will one day inherit his grandfather’s vast fortune. By the end, they have deteriorated to such an extent that both appear to be bitter, empty shells of their former selves. Gloria has lost her beauty and with it her confidence, and Anthony has metamorphosed into a dissolute drunk who behaves like a child. Theirs is a bleak story without any real promise of redemption.
The Beautiful and Damned
is a cautionary tale of a young, insouciant, and irresponsible couple, Anthony and Gloria Patch, and their inevitable downward spiral. In the beginning, they are carefree and happy, buoyed by their love for each other and the hope that Anthony will one day inherit his grandfather’s vast fortune. By the end, they have deteriorated to such an extent that both appear to be bitter, empty shells of their former selves. Gloria has lost her beauty and with it her confidence, and Anthony has metamorphosed into a dissolute drunk who behaves like a child. Theirs is a bleak story without any real promise of redemption.
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