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American Literature: The Modernist Period: Fitzgerald

A research topic guide on the modernist period of American literature.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) was an American writer, best known for The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, This Side of Paradise, and The Beautiful and Damned. 

Research & Reference

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Concise Biography

This overview of the biography and writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the Famous Authors series traces Fitzgerald’s life and influences—from his birth in St. Paul, Minnesota, to his university days at Princeton, literary celebrity, and frivolity in New York; to his status as social purveyor of modernists in Paris; to his tumultuous marriage to the talented but troubled Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and following alcoholic spiral. (33 minutes)

Source: Films on Demand

Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St Paul Minnesota into a fairly well-off family. He began his first novel while at Princeton University and very shortly after leaving it was accepted by Scribners and successfully published. He went on to be the prophet of the Jazz age of the twenties but his popularity declined. He is now recognised as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. This film by Malcolm Hossick covers his life and background and ends with an overview of his work.

Source: AVON

Author's Works & Perspectives

The Great Gatsby

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Flappers and Philosophers

Flappers and Philosophers was F. Scott Fitzgerald's initial encore - his first collection of short fiction, published in 1920 to capitalize on the success of This Side of Paradise, the novel that had made him famous at the age of twenty-three. Some of his best early stories are included here: 'The Offshore Pirate', 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair', 'The Ice Palace' and 'Benediction'. In these narratives Fitzgerald presented his prototypical Jazz-Age heroines, beautiful and wilful young women who later became trademarks of his fiction. Part of the authoritative Cambridge Edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald, this volume now appears in paperback for the first time. It offers detailed explanatory notes, a record of variants and appendices tracing the composition and publication history of the stories.

The Love of the Last Tycoon

Even in its incomplete form The Love of The Last Tycoon has achieved a reputation as the best novel about Hollywood. When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 he had written seventeen of thirty projected episodes. In 1941 the 'unfinished novel' was published in a text for general readers by Edmund Wilson under the title The Last Tycoon. For more than fifty years this edition, which is not true to the original work in progress, has been the only one available. This critical edition of The Love of The Last Tycoon, first published in 1994, utilises Fitzgerald's manuscript drafts, revised typescipts, and working notes to establish the first authoritative text of the work. The volume includes a detailed history of the gestation, composition, and publication of the novel; full textual apparatus with editorial notes; fascimiles of the drafts; and explanatory notes on topical allusions and historical references for contemporary readers. The reconstruction of Fitzgerald's plan for the thirteen unwritten episodes is particularly useful. F. Scott Fitzgerald's incomplete masterpiece is restored its 1940 state, and thus made fully accessible to a cross-section of readers.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Heralded as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, Fitzgerald was known for his novels and stories of the 1920s. He created cynical, but glittering characters to define the Jazz Age and also published many novels and short stories including The Great Gatsby. He was also the central character in other novels and biographies.

Source: Films on Demand