A Life in Letters Page 4
At any rate I’m tremendously obliged for taking an interest in it and writing that awfully decent letter to Scribner. . . . If he thinks that a revision would make it at all practicable I’d rather do it than not or if he dispairs of it I might try some less conservative publisher than Scribner is known to be. . .
We have no news except that we’re probably going inside of two months—and, officers and men, we’re wild to go. . . .
I wonder if you’re working on the history of Martin Luther or are on another tack. . . . Do write a novel with young men in it, and kill the rancid taste that the semi-brilliant “Changing Winds”1 left on so many tongues. Or write a thinly disguised autobiography. . . . or something. I’m wild for books and none are forthcoming. . . I wrote mine (as Stevenson wrote Treasure Island) to satisfy my own craving for a certain type of novel. Why are all the trueish novels written by the gloomy, half-twilight realists like Beresford and Walpole and St. John Irvine?2 Even the Soul of a Bishop is colorless. . . . Where are the novels of five years ago: Tono Bungay, Youth’s Encounter, Man Alive, The New Machiavelli3. . . . . . Heavens has the war caught all literature in the crossed nets of Galesworthy and George Moore1. . .
Well. . . May St. Robert (Benson)2 appear to Scribner in a dream. . .
Faithfully
F. Scott Fitzgerald
P. S. much obliged for mailing on Dr. Fay’s letter
F.S.F.
TO: Shane Leslie
ALS, 1 p. Bruccoli
17thInf. Brig Hq
Camp Sheridan Ala.
Jan 13th 1919
Dear Mr. Leslie:
I can’t tell you how I feel about Monsiegneur Fay’s death—He was the best friend I had in the world and last night he seemed so close and so good that I was almost glad—because I think he wanted to die. Deep under it all he had a fear of that blending of the two worlds, that sudden change of values that sometimes happened to him and put a vague unhappiness into the stray corners of his life.
But selfishly I am sorry. Never more
“Will we drink with the sunlight for lamp
Myself and the dead”3
I know how you feel too and Stephen Parrot + Mrs Leslie + Mrs Chandler and Father Hemmick and Delbos + OKelley + Sanderson and the fifty people that must somehow have felt a great security in him. He was such a secure man: one knows that he is happy now—oh God! I cant write—
I just wanted to talk to someone who knew him as I knew him
Sincerely
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Shane Leslie
January–February 1919
ALS, 3 pp. Bruccoli
American Red Cross Base Hospital
stationery. Camp Sheridan,
Alabama
Dear Mr. Leslie.
Your letter seemed to start a new flow of sorrow in me. I’ve never wanted so much to die in my life—Father Fay always thought that if one of us died the others would and now how I’ve hoped so.
Oh it all seemed so easy, life I mean—with people who understood and satisfied needs. Even the philis tines seemed very good and quiet always ready to be duped or influenced or something and now my little world made to order has been shattered by the death of one man.
I’m beginning to have a horror of people; I can quite sympathize with your desire to become a Carthusian.
This has made me nearly sure that I will become a priest—I feel as if in a way his mantle had descended apon me—a desire or more, to some day recreate the atmosphere of him—I think he was the sort of man St. Peter was, so damned human—
Think of the number of people who in a way looked to him and depended on him—His faith shining thru all the versatility and intellect.
I think I did feel him but I cant tell you of it in a letter. It was rather ghastly——
I’m coming to New York in Feb. or March to write or something.
I’ll come and see you then.
If there’s anything about him in any magazines I wish youd send them.
I’ve been here in the hospital with influenza
As Ever
F Scott Fitzgerald
17thBrig. Hq.
Camp Sheridan
Ala
TO: Zelda Sayre
After February 22, 1919
Wire. Scrapbook. Princeton University
New York City
MISS SELDA SAYRE
DARLING HEART AMBITION ENTHUSIASM AND CONFIDENCE I DECLARE EVERYTHING GLORIOUS THIS WORLD IS A GAME AND WHITE I FEEL SURE OF YOU LOVE EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE I AM IN THE LAND OF AMBITION AND SUCCESS AND MY ONLY HOPE AND FAITH IS THAT MY DARLING HEART WILL BE WITH ME SOON.1
TO: Zelda Sayre
Wire. Scrapbook. Princeton University
NEWYORK NY MAR 22 1919
MISS LILDA SAYRE
DARLING I SENT YOU A LITTLE PRESENT FRIDAY THE RING1 ARRIVED TONIGHT AND I AM SENDING IT MONDAY I LOVE YOU AND I THOUGHT I WOULD TELL YOU HOW MUCH ON THIS SATURDAY NIGHT WHEN WE OUGHT TO BE TOGETHER DONT LET YOUR FAMILY BE SHOCKED AT MY PRESENT
SCOTT
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE,
MARRIAGE, EARLY SUCCESS
1919–1924
July–August 1919
FSF quits New York job, returns to St. Paul, and rewrites novel at 599 Summit Avenue.
September 1919
“Babes in the Woods” published in The Smart Set, FSF’s first commercial magazine appearance.
September 16, 1919
Maxwell Perkins of Scribners accepts This Side of Paradise.
November 1919
First sale to The Saturday Evening Post: “Head and Shoulders,” published February 1920. FSF becomes client of Harold Ober at the Reynolds agency.
November 1919
FSF visits Zelda in Montgomery; engagement resumed.
November 1919–February 1920
The Smart Set publishes “The Debutante,” “Porcelain and Pink,” “Benediction,” and “Dalyrimple Goes Wrong.”
March–May 1920
The Saturday Evening Post publishes “Myra Meets His Family,” “The Camel’s Back,” “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” “The Ice Palace,” and “The Offshore Pirate.”
March 26, 1920
Publication of This Side of Paradise.
April 3, 1920
Marriage at rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York; honeymoon at the Biltmore and later at Commodore Hotel.
May–September 1920
Fitzgeralds rent house in Westport, Connecticut.
July 1920
“May Day” in The Smart Set.
September 10, 1920
Publication of Flappers and Philosophers, FSF’s first short story collection.
1920
The Chorus Girl’s Romance, first movie made from FSF work (“Head and Shoulders”).
October 1920–April 1921
Apartment at 38 West 59th Street, New York City.
May–July 1921
First trip to Europe: England, France, and Italy.
Mid-August 1921–September 1922
St. Paul; rent a house at Dellwood, White Bear Lake; after birth of their daughter take a house at 646 Goodrich Avenue; in June 1922 move to White Bear Yacht Club for the summer.
October 26, 1921
Birth of Scottie.
March 4, 1922
Publication of The Beautiful and Damned.
June 1922
“The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” in The Smart Set.
1922
The Beautiful and Damned made into movie.
September 22, 1922
Publication of Tales of the Jazz Age, second collection of short stories.
Mid-October 1922–April 1924
Fitzgeralds rent house at 6 Gateway Drive in Great Neck, Long Island.
April 27, 1923
Publication of The Vegetable.
November 1923
The Vegetable fails at its tryout in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Mid-April 1924
Fitzgeralds sail for France.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
599 Summit Ave
St. Paul, Minnesota
July 26th, 1919
Dear Mr. Perkins:
After four months attempt to write commercial copy by day and painful half-hearted imitations of popular literature by night I decided that it was one thing or another. So I gave up getting married and went home.
Yesterday I finished the first draft of a novel called
THE EDUCATION OF A PERSONAGE
It is in no sense a revision of the ill-fated Romantic Egotist but it contains some of the former material improved and worked over and bears a strong family resemblance besides.
But while the other was a tedius, disconnected casserole this is definate attempt at a big novel and I really believe I have hit it, as immediately I stopped disciplining the muse she trotted obediently around and became an erratic mistress if not a steady wife.
Now what I want to ask you is this—if I send you the book by August 20th and you decide you could risk its publication (I am blatantly confident that you will) would it be brought out in October, say, or just what would decide its date of publication?
This is an odd question I realize especially since you havn’t even seen the book but you have been so kind in the past about my stuff that I venture to intrude once more apon your patience.
Sincerely
F Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Edmund Wilson
1919
ALS, 4 pp. Yale University
599 Summit Ave
St. Paul, Minn
August 15th
Dear Bunny:
Delighted to get your letter. I am deep in the throes of a new novel. Which is the best title
(1) The Education of a Personage
(2) The Romantic Egotist
(3) This Side of Paradise
* * *
* * *
I am sending it to Scribner—They liked my first one. Am enclosing two letters from them that migh t’amuse you. Please return them.
* * *
* * *
I have just the story for your book. Its not written yet. An American girl falls in love with an officier Francais at a Southern camp.
Since I last saw you I’ve tried to get married + then tried to drink myself to death but foiled, as have been so many good men, by the sex and the state I have returned to literature
* * *
* * *
Have sold three or four cheap stories to Amurican magazines.
* * *
* * *
Will start on story for you about 25th d’Auout (as the French say or do not say), (which is about 10 days off)
* * *
* * *
I am ashamed to say that my Catholoscism is scarcely more than a memory—no that’s wrong its more than that; at any rate I go not to the church nor mumble stray nothings over chrystaline beads.
* * *
* * *
May be in N’York in Sept or early Oct.
Is John Bishop in hoc terrain?
Remember me to Larry Noyes. I’m afraid he’s very much off me. I don’t think he’s seen me sober for many years.
For god’s sake Bunny write a novel + don’t waste your time editing collections. It’ll get to be a habit.
That sounds crass + discordant but you know what I mean.
* * *
* * *
Yours in the Holder1 group
F Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 3 pp. Princeton University
599 Summit Ave
St. Paul Minn
August 16th, 1919
Dear Mr. Perkins:
I appreciated both your letters and I’m sure you wont be dissapointed in the book when you get it. It is a well-considered, finished whole this time and I think its a more crowded (in the best sense) piece of work than has been published in this country for some years.
It is finished, except for one last revision or rather correction and the typewriting, so I think you’ll get it before September 1st. As to sample chapters—it seems hardly worth while to send them to you now. The title has been changed to
This Side of Paradise
from those lines of Rupert Brookes
. . . Well, this side of paradise
There’s little comfort in the wise.
About two chapters are from my old book, completly changed and rewritten, the rest is new material
On the next page I’ve written the chapter names.
Book I
The Romantic Egotist
Chapter I
Amory, son of Beatrice
" II
Spires and Gargoyles
" III
The Egotist considers
Interlude
March 1917 – February 1919
Book II
The Education of a Personage
Chapter I
The Debutante
" II
Experiments in Convalescense
" III
Young Irony
" IV
The Supercillious Sacrifice
" V
The Egotist becomes a Personage
Book One
contains
about
35,000 words
The Interlude
"
"
4,000 words
Book Two
"
"
47,000 words
Total
"
"
86,000 words
about publication—I asked you the chances of an early publication (in case you take it) for two reasons: first—because I want to get started both in a literary and financial way; second—because it is to some extent a timely book and it seems to me that the public are wild for decent reading matter—“Dangerous Days” and “Ramsey Milholland”1—My God!
Thanking you again for past favors—I am
Sincerely
F. Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
599 Summit Ave.
St. Paul, Minn.
Sept. 4th 1919.
Dear Mr. Perkins:
I sent the book today under a separate cover. I want to discuss a few things in connection with it.
You’ll notice that it contains much material from the Romantic Egotist.
(1) Chapter II Bk I of the present book contains material from “Spires + Gargoyles, Ha-Ha Hortense, Babes in the Wood + Crecendo”—rewritten in third person, cut down and re-edited
(2) Chapter III Bk I contains material from “Second descent of the Egotist and the Devil.” rewritten ect.
(3) Chapter IV Bk I contains material from “The Two Mystics, Clara + the End of Many Things”
(4) Chapter III Bk II is a revision of Eleanor in 3d person—with that fur incident left out.
Chap I Bk I, + Chaps I, II, IV + V of Bk II are entirely new.
You’ll see that of the old material there is all new use, outside the revision in the 3d person. For instance the Princeton characters of the R.E.—Tom, Tump, Lorry, Lumpy, Fred, Dick, Jim, Burne, Judy, Mcintyre and Jesse have become in this book—Fred, Dick, Alec, Tom, Kerry + Burne. Isabelle + Rosalind of the R.E. have become just Isabelle while the new Rosalind is a different person.
Beatrice is a new character—Dr. Dudly becomes Monsignor Darcy; is much better done—in fact every character is in better perspective.
The preface I leave to your discretion—perhaps its a little too clever-clever; likewise you may object to the literary personalities in Chap II + Bk II and to the length of the socialistic discussion in the last chapter. The book contains a little over ninety thousand words. I certainly think the hero gets somewhere.
I await anxiously your verdict
Sincerely
F Scott Fitzgerald
P.S. Thorton Hancock is Henry Adams1—I didn’t do him tho
roughly of course—but I knew him when I was a boy.
S.F.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 5pp. Princeton University
599 Summit Ave.
St. Paul, Minn
Sept 18th, 1919
Dear Mr. Perkins:
Of course I was delighted to get your letter and I’ve been in a sort of trance all day; not that I doubted you’d take it but at last I have something to show people. It has enough advertisement in St. Paul already to sell several thousand copies + I think Princeton will buy it (I’ve been a periodical, local Great-Expections for some time in both places.)
Terms ect I leave to you but one thing I can’t relinquish without at least a slight struggle. Would it be utterly impossible for you to publish the book Xmas—or say by February? I have so many things dependent on its success—including of course a girl—not that I expect it to make me a fortune but it will have a psychological effect on me and all my surroundings and besides open up new fields. I’m in that stage where every month counts frantically and seems a cudgel in a fight for happiness against time. Will you let me know more exactly how that difference in time of publication influences the sale + what you mean by “early Spring”?
Excuse this ghastly handwriting but I’m a bit nervous today. I’m beginning (last month) a very ambitious novel called “The Demon Lover” which will probably take a year also I’m writing short stories. I find that what I enjoy writing is always my best—Every young author ought to read Samuel Butler’s Note Books.2
I’m writing quite a marvellous after-the-war story. Does Mr Bridges3 think that they’re a little passé or do you think he’d like to see it?
I’ll fix up data for advertising + have a photo taken next week with the most gigantic enjoyment (I’m trying H.G. Well’s use of vast garagantuan [sp.] words)