Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  It amazes me, Max, to see you with your discernment and your fine intelligence fall for that whole complicated fake. Your chief critical flaw is to confuse mere earnestness with artistic sincerity. On two of Ring’s jackets have been statements that he never wrote a dishonest word (maybe it’s one jacket). But Ring and many of the very greatest artists have written thousands of words in plays, poems and novels which weren’t even faintly sincere or earnest and were yet artistically sincere. The latter term is not a synonym for plodding earnestness. Zola did not say the last word about literature nor the first.

  I append all the data on my fall book, and in closing I apologize for seeming impassioned about Tom and his work when neither the man or what he writes has ever been personally inimical to me. He is simply the scapegoat for the mood Rascoe has put me in and, the I mean every word of it, I probably wouldn’t have wasted all this paper on a book that won’t sell and will be dead in a month, and an imitative school that will be dead by its own weight in a year or so, if the news about Liveright hadn’t come on top of the Rascoe review and ruined my disposition. Good luck to Drummond. I’m sure one or two critics will mistake it for profound stuff - maybe even Mencken, who has a weakness in that direction. But I think you should look closer.

  With best wishes as always, Max,

  Your friend,

  Scott

  DATA ON NEW FITZGERALD BOOK

  Title: All the Sad Young Men (9 Short Stories)

  Print list of previous books as before with addition of this title under ‘Stories.’ Binding uniform with others. Jacket plain, as you suggest, with text instead of picture. Dedication: To Ring and Ellis Lardner.

  The stories (now under revision) will reach you by July 15th. No proofs need be sent over here.

  It will be fully up to the other collections and will contain only one of those Post stories that people were so snooty about. You have read only one of the stories (‘Absolution’) - all the others were so good that I had difficulty in selling them, except two.

  They are, in approximate order to be used in book:

  1. — The Rich Boy (just finished - serious story 13,000 words and very good)

  2. — ‘Absolution’ (from Mercury) — 6,500 words

  of English prose now writing in America.... What other writer has shown such unexpected developments, such versatility, changes of pace,’ etc., etc., etc. I think that, toned down as you see fit, is the general line. Don’t say ‘Fitzgerald has done it!’ and then in the next sentence that I am an artist. People who are interested in artists aren’t interested in people who have ‘done it.’ Both are O.K. but don’t belong in the same ad. This is an author’s quibble. All authors have one quibble.

  However, you have always done well by me (except for Black’s memorable excretion in the Alumni Weekly, do you remember - ‘Make it a Fitzgerald Christmas!’) and I leave it to you. If 100,000 copies are not sold I shall shift to Mitchell Kennerley.

  By the way what has become of Black? I hear he has written a very original and profound novel. It is said to be about an inarticulate farmer and his struggles with the ‘soil’ and his sexual waverings between his inarticulate wife and an inarticulate sheep. He finally chooses his old pioneering grandmother as the most inarticulate of all but finds her in bed with none other than our old friend THE HIRED MAN CHRISTY.

  CHRISTY HAD DONE IT!

  In 1962 Fitzgerald’s famous letter to Perkins was sold at auction at Chrystie’s (not old man Christy’s) for £7,000.

  14 rue de Tilsitt

  Paris, France

  circa July 1, 1925

  Dear Max:

  This is another one of those letters with a thousand details in them, so I’ll number the details and thus feel I’m getting them out of the way.

  (1) Will you have an account (bi-yearly statement) sent me as soon as you can? I don’t know how much I owe you but it must be between 3 and 4 thousand dollars. I want to see how much chance All the Sad Young Men has of making up this difference. Thanks many times for the $700.00. It will enable me to go ahead next month with Our Type t which is getting shaped up both on paper and in my head. I’d rather not tell about it just yet.

  (2) — Is Gatsby to be published in England? I’m awfully anxious to have it published there. If Collins won’t have it, can’t you try JonathanCape? Do let me know about this.

  (3) — Will you tell me the figures on Ring’s books? Also on Through the Wheat. I re-read the latter the other day and think it’s marvelous. Together with The Enormous Room and, I think, Gatsby, it’s much the best thing that has come out of American fiction since the war. I exclude Anderson because since reading Three Lives and his silly autobiography my feeling about him has entirely changed. He is a short story writer only.

  (4) — I spent $48.00 having a sketch of me done by Ivan Opfer. It was lousy and he says he’ll try another. If it’s no good I’ll send a photo. The stories for the book leave here day after tomorrow.

  (5) — I think the number of Americans in Europe has hurt the market. Gatsby is the last principal book of mine that I want to publish in the spring. I believe that from now on fall will be much the best season.

  (6) — I’m sorry about that burst at Tom

  Boyd. But I am among those who suffer from the preoccupation of literary America with the drab as subject matter. Seldes points this out in a great review of Gatsby for the London Criterion. Also he says, ‘Fitzgerald has certainly the best chance at present of becoming our finest artist in fiction.’ Quite a bit from Gilbert who only likes Ring, Edith Wharton, Joyce and Charlie Chaplin. Please get Meyer to put it on the cover of the new book and delete the man who says I ‘deserve the huzzas of those who want to further a worthy American Literature.’ Perhaps I deserve their huzzas but I’d rather they’d express their appreciation in some less boisterous way.

  (7) — T’m sending back the questionnaire.

  (8) — I suppose that by now Gatsby is over 18,000.I hope to God it reaches 20,000. It sounds so much better. Shane Leslie thought it was fine.

  No news, Max. I was drinking hard in May but for the last month I’ve been working like a dog. I still think Count Orgel’s Ball by Radiguet would sell like wildfire. If I had the time I’d translate it myself.

  Scott

  14 rue de Tilsitt

  Paris,

  France circa October 6, 1925

  Dear Max:

  Your letter of September 28th doesn’t answer my question about Gatsby in England. Is there some reason why Chatto & Windus can’t publish in the spring? - And if they believe in it so little that they’ll defer it a year and a half wouldn’t they be willing to hand it over to Cape? I hate to be a crabby old woman about this, Max, but it means a lot to me. Gatsby is just the sort of book which the English say that Americans can’t write, which they praise Hergesheimer for almost writing; I know half a dozen influential people there who will go to bat for it right now and it seems to me that it should have a chance. I am further confused when your letter says ‘Chatto & Windus and other publishers admired it but they thought it too American in its scene to be understood in England.’ Does that mean Chatto & Windus aren’t going to publish it? I’m disgruntled and up-in-the-air about the whole thing.

  Isn’t Hemingway’s book fine? Did you read the last story?

  I’m having Reynolds send you 6 tickets to the opening of Gatsby if it gets to New York. Distribute them as you like and if you want more let him know.

  I’m anxiously awaiting the figure on Gatsby (how many sold, I mean); also on Ring’s reprints as I feel sort of responsible to you on that idea. If he’d have a little pep and interest he might have devoted enough care to What of It? to make it sell as well as The Illiterate Digest.

  Who has the American rights to Paul Morand’s Open AH Night and Closed All Night? Guy Chapman publishes them in England. They’re great - and would sell like wildfire. Isn’t Anderson’s new book lousy?+

  As ever,

  Scott

  14 r
ue de Tilsitt

  Paris,

  France

  circa December 27, 1925

  Dear Max:

  I write to you from the depth of one of my unholy depressions. The book is wonderful - I honestly think that when it’s published I shall be the best American novelist (which isn’t saying a lot) but the end seems far away. When it’s finished I’m coming home for awhile anyhow though the thought revolts me as much as the thought of remaining in France. I wish I were twenty-two again with only my dramatic and feverishly enjoyed miseries. You remember I used to say I wanted to die at thirty - well, I’m now twenty-nine and the prospect is still welcome. My work is the only thing that makes me happy - except to be a little tight - and for those two indulgences I pay a big price in mental and physical hangovers.

  I thank you for your newsy letter - by the way we got and hugely enjoved Louise’s beautiful book and I wrote and thanked her care of Scribners. I liked too your idea about Representative Men but it seems remote to me. Let me know if it comes to something and I’ll contribute.

  That was a sweet slam from Ellen Mackey. Is it true that she and Irving Berlin have signed up to play a permanent engagement in Abie’s Irish Rose? I hope the short stories sell seven or eight thousand or so. Is Gatsby dead? You don’t mention it. Has it reached 25,000? I hardly dare to hope so. Also I deduce from your silence that Tom Boyd’s book was a flop. If so I hope he isn’t in financial difficulties. Also I gather from reviews that the penciled frown came a cropper. I wish Liveright would lose faith in Ernest. Through the whole year only the following American novels have seemed worth a damn to me:

  The Spring Flight

  Perennial Bachelor

  In Our Time

  The Great Gatsby

  I thought the books by Lewis, Van Vechten, Edith Wharton, Floyd Dell, Tom Boyd and Sherwood Anderson were just lousy!

  And the ones by Willa Cather and Cyril Hume almost as bad.

  Dos Passos and Ruth Suckow I haven’t yet read.

  The press Anderson got on Dark Laughter filled me with a much brighter shade of hilarity. You notice it wasn’t from those of us who waited for the Winesburg stories one by one in the Little Review but by Harry Hansen, Stallings, etc., and the other boys who find a new genius once a week and at all cost follow the fashions.

  It’s good you didn’t take my advice about looking up Gertrude Stein’s new book (The Making of Americans). It’s bigger than Ulysses and only the first parts, the parts published in the Transatlantic, are intelligible at all. It’s published privately here.

  The best English books of the fall are The Sailor’s Return by David Gamett and No More Parades by Ford Maddox Ford (a sequel to Some Do Not).

  (Speaking of Gertrude Stein I hope you are keeping my precious Three Lives safe for me.) Ring’s book sounds good. Send me a copy - also the wrap of mine.

  I told Ober to send you half a dozen seats for the Gatsby opening to distribute to the Scribners as you think best. If you want more phone him.

  No, Zelda’s not entirely well yet. We’re going south next month to Salies-les-Bains to see if we can cure her there. So from the time of receiving this letter address all mail to me care of

  The Guaranty Trust Co.

  1 rue des Italiens Paris,France

  Why was fack Wheeler kicked out of Liberty?

  My novel should be finished next fall.

  Tell me all the gossip that isn’t in The New Yorker or the World - isn’t there any regular dirt?

  I called on Chatto & Windus in London last month and had a nice talk with Swinnerton, their reader. (It was he, it seems, who was strong for the book.) Saw Leslie also and went on some very high-tone parties with Mountbattens and all that sort of thing.

  Very impressed, but not very, as I furnished most of the amusement myself. Please write! Best to Louise.

  Your friend, Scott Fitzg —

  Has story book had good advance sale? Or hasn’t it been the rounds yet? What’s its date?

  14 Rue de Tilsitt

  (New address: Guaranty Trust Co.1 rue des Italiens)

  circa December 30,1925

  Dear Max:

  (1) — To begin with, many thanks for all deposits, to you and to the Scribners in general. I have no idea now how I stand with you. To set me straight, will you send me my account now instead of waiting till February ist? It must be huge, and I’m miserable about it. The more I get for my trash, the less I can bring myself to write. However this year is going to be different.

  (2) — Hemingway’s book (not his novel) is a 28,000 word satire on Sherwood Anderson and his imitators called The Torrents of Spring. I loved it, but believe it wouldn’t be popular, and Liveright have refused it - they are backing Anderson and the book is almost a vicious parody on him. You see I agree with Ernest that Anderson’s last two books have let everybody down who believed in him - I think they’re cheap, faked, obscurantic and awful. Hemingway thinks, but isn’t yet sure to my satisfaction, that their refusal sets him free from his three-book (letter) agreement with them. In that case I think he’ll give you his novel (on condition you’ll publish satire first - probable sale, 1000 copies) which he is now revising in Austria. Harcourt has just written Louis Bromfield that to get the novel they’ll publish satire, sight unseen (utterly confidential) and Knopf is after him via Aspinwall Bradley.

  He and I are very thick and he’s marking time until he finds out how much he’s bound to Liveright. If he’s free I’m almost sure I can get satire to you first and then if you see your way clear

  c/o Guaranty Trust Co.

  Paris, France circa January 19, 1926

  Dear Max:

  Your thoughtful cablegram came today and I can’t imagine how the rumor got started - unless from Zelda using an imaginary illness as a protection against the many transients who demand our time. Somehow if one lives in Paris one is fair game for all the bores one wouldn’t look at and who wouldn’t look at one in New York. (If there’s one thing I hate it’s a sentence full of ‘ones.’)

  We have escaped to a small town in the Pyrenees where Zelda is to take a cure. Our address for cables is Fitzgerald, Bellevue, Salies-de-Bearn, France, but for letters the Guaranty, Paris, is best. We are living in an absolutely deserted hotel. We move on to Nice the first of March. Here are my usual list of things.

  (1) — Thanks a million times for the bound copy of my book - it is beautiful and, Max, I’m enormously obliged. I wish you’d written in the front - but that will wait till I get home. Your thought of me touched me more than I can say.

  (2) — Now about the many deposits. They are past all reckoning but must total $5000 which is a record advance (?) on a book of short stories. I’m terribly sorry, Max. Could he send me my account this year on the1st of February really instead of February 15th? We won’t be able to tell about The Sad Young anyhow and I’m frantic to know if I’m helplessly in debt.

  (3) — What is the date of the book? How are advance sales, compared with Gatsby? Did the latter ever reach 25,000?

  (4) — Now, confidentially, as to Hemingway. He wrote a satire 28,000 words long on Sherwood Anderson, very funny but very cerebral, called The Torrents of Spring. It is biting on Anderson - so Liveright turns it down. Hemingway’s contract lapses when Liveright turns down a book, so Hemingway says. But I think Horace will claim this isn’t a book and fight it like the devil, according to a letter I saw which he wrote Ernest, because he’s crazy to get Ernest’s almost completed novel The Sun Also Rises. It is such a mess that Ernest goes to N.Y. next month.

  Meanwhile Harcourt and Knopf are after him but he’s favorably disposed toward you because of your letters, and of the magazine. He’s very excitable, though, and I can’t promise he’ll know his own mind next month. I’ll tip you off the moment he arrives. Of course if Bridges likes his work and if you’ll take Torrents he’s yours absolutely - contingent, of course, on the fact that he isn’t bitched by some terrible contract with Liveright. To hear him talk you’d think Liveright h
ad broken up his home and robbed him of millions - but that’s because he knows nothing of publishing, except in the cuckoo magazines, is very young and feels helpless so far away. You won’t be able to help liking him - — he’s one of the nicest fellows I ever knew.

  In addition to the critics will you send my new book to the following people and charge my account (except in cases like Hergesheimer and Van Vechten, who actually reviewed Gatsby)? Send me only 3 copies. Thanks again for my beautiful copy.

  As ever, Scott

  South of France February 20, 1926

  Dear Max:

  Two things have just occurred to me - or rather three. (1) You’ll get this letter about the 3rd of March. My book of stories may, at that time, have been out three weeks or three days - — you’ve not told me the date. Will you in any case write me immediately forecasting roughly the approximate sale? I know it can be only guesswork and you’ll be afraid of overestimating but I’d like to know at least the sale to that date. It has something to do with my income tax which must leave here the 14th. Also, would you send me an income tax blank?

  My God! If it should sell 10,000 copies I’d be out of debt to you for the 1st time since 1922. Isn’t that a disgrace, when I get $2500 for a story as my regular price? But trash doesn’t come as easily as it used to and I’ve grown to hate the poor old debauched form itself.

  How about Tom Boyd? Is he still going to be one of the barnyard boys? Or has he got sense and decided to write about the war, or seducing married women in St Paul, or life in a bum Kentucky military school, or something he knows about. He has no touch of genius like Hemingway and Cummings but like Dos Passos he has a strong, valuable talent. He must write about the external world, as vividly and acutely and even brilliantly as he can, but let him stop there. He is almost without the power of clear ratiocination and he has no emotional depths whatsoever. His hide is so thick that only battle itself could really make an impression on him - playing with the almost evanescent spiritual material of Anderson he becomes an ox to public view. I wish to God I could see him and talk to him. For heaven’s sake, Max, curb your usual (and, generally, sagacious) open-mindedness and don’t help him to ruin his future by encouraging his stupidest ambitions - he’ll turn bitter with failure.