The Crack-Up.

FITZGERALD, F. Scott.; Edited by Edmund Wilson.

$3,000.00

Item Number: 2212

New York: New Directions, 1945.

First edition of this collection of essays by Fitzgerald, published posthumously. Octavo, original half cloth. Inscribed by Edmund Wilson, who served as editor to this posthumous Fitzgerald work, “To Frangeon L. Jones with the best regards of Edmund Wilson Peterborough Aug. 16, 1964.” Laid into the book is the newspaper article from August 17,1964 regarding Edmund Wilson’s presentation of the Edward MacDowell Medal at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In near fine condition, lacking the dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Uncommon signed and inscribed.

The Crack-Up tells the story of Fitzgerald's sudden descent at the age of thirty-nine from glamorous success to empty despair, and his determined recovery. Contains letters to and from Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot and John Dos Passos." So begins a collection of essays which can be seen as a reflection of the low point of Fitzgerald’s career. Indeed, the essays were poorly received when first published in Esquire magazine in 1936, and many were critical of his personal revelations. Nonetheless, their popular has resurged and "[t]he essays stand today as a compelling psychological portrait and an illustration of an important Fitzgerald theme" (Tracy Simmons).