This Side of Paradise.

FITZGERALD, F. Scott.

$6,200.00

Item Number: 147295

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920.

First edition, first printing of Fitzgerald’s first novel, with an initial print run of only 3,000 copies. Octavo, original dark green cloth with gilt titles to the spine. With a rare typed letter signed by by Fitzgerald’s legendary editor, Maxwell Perkins, laid in. One page, typescript, on Perkins’ Charles Scribner’s Sons Publishers letterhead, the letter reads in full, ‘August 10, 1937 Dear Mr. Kozlenko: I think the idea you outline in your of August 7th for an anthology of on act plays is a good one. I’d like to see you at any time convenient to talk it over. The greatest difficulty would be the compensation of the various authors for the use of their material. Hoping you may find it easy to stop in soon, because in the absence of my secretary on vacation, I am chained to my desk, Ever sincerely yours, “Maxwell Perkins” To Mr. William Kozlenko.’ Maxwell Perkins, considered by many the greatest book editor of all time, left a monumental legacy in his thirty-seven years at the publishing house of Charles Scribner’s Sons, helping shape literature by discovering and guiding several highly influential writers including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and James Jones. After working as a reporter for The New York Times, Perkins joined Scribner’s Sons in 1910 as an advertising manager, before becoming an editor. At that time, Scribner’s was known for publishing older authors such as John Galsworthy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Perkins, however, wished to publish younger writers. Unlike most editors, he actively sought out promising new authors; he made his first big find in 1919 when he signed F. Scott Fitzgerald. Initially, no one at Scribner’s except Perkins had liked The Romantic Egotist, the working title of Fitzgerald’s first novel, and it was rejected. Even so, Perkins worked with Fitzgerald to revise the manuscript until it was accepted by the publishing house. Its publication as This Side of Paradise (1920) marked the arrival of a new literary generation that would always be associated with Perkins. Fitzgerald’s profligacy and alcoholism strained his relationship with Perkins. Nonetheless, Perkins remained Fitzgerald’s friend to the end of Fitzgerald’s short life, in addition to his editorial relationship with the author, particularly evidenced in The Great Gatsby (1925), which benefited substantially from Perkins’ criticism. It was also through Fitzgerald that Perkins met Ernest Hemingway, publishing his first major novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926. The recipient, William Kozlenko was a playwright, screenwriter, and editor of multiple stage-play compilations and anthologies, as well as being a founding editor of One-Act Play Magazine, which published from 1937–1942, and a co-founder of the One-Act Repertory Theater. His best-known editorial compilations include The Disputed Works of William Shakespeare and the 1938 collection The Best Short Plays of the Social Theater, which included contemporary works such as Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty, Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock, and W.H. Auden’s and Christopher Isherwood’s The Dog Beneath the Skin. The present letter was likely sent in reference to the future publication of his anthology Contemporary one-act plays, which was published by Scribner’s in 1938. In near fine condition. An exceptional example. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery.

This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post–World War I youth. The novel's hero, Amory Blaine, is a handsome, spoiled young man who attends Princeton, becomes involved in literary activities and has several ill-fated romances. A portrait of the Lost Generation, the novel addresses Fitzgerald's later theme of love distorted by social climbing and greed" (Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). Fitzgerald was still at university when he submitted the manuscript, then titled The Romantic Egoist, to Charles Scribner, whom he had known at Princeton. It was published on 26 March 1920, was an immediate success, and launched Fitzgerald's literary career.