(2) Has the play’s success helped the book Gatsby? My theory, you know, is that nowadays there’s not the faintest connection. That’s why I wouldn’t allow a movie edition of The Beautiful and Damned. By the way I don’t imagine those little 75 cent books sell any more. They shouldn’t. Do they? I mean did Jesse Williams’, Arthur Train’s, Wilson’s addresses, etc., sell like The Perfect Tribute and The Third Wise Man?
Now, confidential: T. S. Eliot, for whom you know my profound admiration - I think he’s the greatest living poet in any language - wrote me he’d read Gatsby three times and thought it was the first step forward American fiction had taken since Henry James.
Wait till they see the new novel!
Did you get Hemingway?
There was something else I wanted to ask you. What was it, damn it?
We’re coming home in the fall, but I don’t want to. I’d like to live and die on the French Riviera.
What’s the inside dope on the Countess Cathcart case?
I can’t remember my other question and it’s driving me frantic. Frantic! (Half an hour later) Frantic!
FRANTIC!!!
If you see anybody I know tell ‘em I hate ‘em all, him especially. Never want to see ‘em again.
Why shouldn’t I go crazy? My father is a moron and my mother is a neurotic, half insane with pathological nervous worry. Between them they haven’t and never have had the brains of Calvin Coolidge. If I knew anything I’d be the best writer in America.
Scott Fitzg —
Eureka! Remembered! Refer my movie offers to Reynolds.
Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins Alpes Maritime France (address till June 15)
circa February 25, 1926
Dear Max:
Thanks very much for your nice letter and the income blank. I’m delighted about the short story book. In fact with the play going well and my new novel growing absorbing and with our being back in a nice villa on my beloved Riviera (between Cannes and Nice) I’m happier than I’ve been for years. It’s one of those strange, precious, and all too transitory moments when everything in one’s life seems to be going well. Thanks for the Arthur Train legal advice. I’m glad you got Hemingway. I saw him for a day in Paris on his return and he thought you were great. I’ve brought you two successes (Ring and Tom Boyd) and two failures ( — and — ).
Ernest will decide whether my opinions are more of a hindrance or a help.
Why not try College Humor for his story? They published one thing of mine.
Poor Tom Boyd! First I was off him for his boneheadedness. Now I’m sorry for him.
Your friend,
Scott
I am out of debt to you for the first time in four years.
Will you get the enclosure for me, open it, and write me?
Think of that horse’s ass F.P.A. coming around to my work after six years of neglect. I’d like to stick his praise up his behind, God knows it’s no use to me now.
Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins France
Before April27, 1926
Dear Max:
Why in God’s name did the advertising department broadcast a rotten sketch of me that makes me look like a degenerate? It’s come to me in a dozen clippings and will probably haunt me for the next five years. As it appears in Scribner’s Magazine I suppose Meyer sent it out - otherwise I would have thought it originated with some country newspaper that needed space in an awful hurry. I know it’s partly my own fault for not sending you one and I suppose this sounds vain and unpleasant but if you knew how it has taken the joy out of the press on my book to have that leering, puffy distortion reach me at the head of almost every review you’d know the way I’ve gotten worked up over it Thanks many times for Our Times. I read every word of it and loved it. Thoroughly interesting. About Mary Colum’s article: I thought that the more solid parts were obvious and pedantic, and that a good half of it was the sort of nonsense I didn’t expect from her. What on earth is the connection between Cocteau and Cummings? What does she mean by form? Does she think King Lear lacks it, while Marianne Moore has it? She uses it in the sense of successful conscious organization (so one thinks) and then it develops that she means mere novelty. Says she:
‘How profoundly true to their race, period and the needs of their public are the great artists - Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere! You can from their work pick out all the qualities, all the thoughts, all the ideals of the time that needed expression.’
How in the devil does she know that? How does anyone know that? There may have been whole elements in each of their times (John Donne, Roger Bacon in Shakespeare’s and Dante’s respective times for example) whose ideals and spirits were not even faintly summed up by the powerful but fallible and all-too-human titan who succeeded in forcing on us his picture. Don’t you agree?
I disliked the essay chiefly because it’s so plausible, and so dead, like (whisper it not, because I like him) the critical work of Ernest Boyd. Perhaps because I’ve just finished Chekhov’s Letters on Literature. God, there’s a book!
You owe me a long letter.
As ever,
Scott
Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins France
Before May 10, 1926
Dear Max:
Thanks many times for all the books. The Hickey I loved, having read the other three volumes of it. The war book too was great - God, what bad luck Tom Boyd had! Stallings made the killing with the play and movie; now Thomason makes a contract with Hearst, for a lot, I guess, and Tom who came first came too early, I suppose. Yet What Price Glory would never have been written, I suppose, except for Through the Wheat. Not that Tom’s novel wasn’t a success in a way but to make about $6000 as an originator and see others rake it in like croupiers later - I know how bitter it must make him.
The — book was tedious. I’m allowing for having seen it all at least three times but it was tedious. Undoubted power and a great gift of prose but you can’t arbitrarily patch together shreds of fine writing and call it a novel. And parts of it were merely sensational bombast. I’m sorry.
Nor, I’m afraid, will Ring’s book add to his reputation. Several stories were fine, none were cheap, but - God, I wish he’d write a more or less personal novel. Couldn’t you persuade him? The real history of an American manager, say Ziegfeld or a theatrical girl. Think how far Anita Loos got with a mere imitation of him.
I’m enclosing a letter. If you are willing I’d like to have them use ‘May Day’ from Tales of the Jazz Age and ‘The Rich Boy’ from All the Sad Young Men.
If it is too soon, in your judgment, to use the latter I could substitute ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.’ If you act as my agent in a case like this will you take it up with them? If not, let me know immediately and I will.
Also Charlie Bailey of Henry Holt wants to use The Camel’s Back’ in an anthology. I suppose it’s all right, good advertising, etc. I’d rather have him use ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ if he would. Both are in Tales of the Jazz Age.
The reviews of All the Sad Young Men have been pleasant, mostly, but, after the book and the play, rather tame. Did it go to 12,000 as you suggested? We’ve had some good nibbles for the movie rights of Gatsby but they want $45,000, I hear. I get one- third of the gross price.
See my article on Hemingway in The Bookman - it’s pretty good.
In absolute confidence I’ve received an offer of $3500 per short story from Liberty. I’m considering it.
My book is wonderful. I don’t think it’ll be interrupted again. I expect to reach New York about December 10th with the manuscript under my arm. I’ll ask between $30,000 and $40,000 for the serial rights and I think Liberty will want it. So book publication would be late spring 1927 or early fall.
No news. Do write. Tell me if Torrents of Spring gets a press. I doubt it will sell. Again thank you for the books.
Ever and always friend,
Scott Fitzg —
Why don’t you come over for a month this summer? You and Louise and th
e two oldest children! Has your depression of last December gone?
Villa St Louis Juan-les-Pins
France
circa May 10, 1926
Dear Max:
The mistral is raging outside like the end of the world and the idea of writing is anathema to me. We are wonderfully situated in a big house on the shore with a beach and the Casino not 100 yards away and every prospect of a marvelous summer.
I’m sorry about Van Wyck Brooks. You yourself sounded a bit depressed.
Dreiser would be crazy to leave Liveright, the I can understand how Horace would get on his nerves. I heard that the movie rights of An American Tragedy brought $90,000 but I don’t believe it. Gatsby, so it now appears, sold for $50,000. An agent on the coast got 10% and Davis, Brady and I split the $45,000. Then I had to pay Reynolds 10% more, so instead of $16,666.66 I received $13,500 - or $3,166.66 went in agents’ commissions. However I shouldn’t kick. Everybody sells movies through an agent and the Reynolds part was necessary since I’m away. I thought the drawings for The Sad Young Men ads were fine. By the way I’m sending two negatives for pictures. Do send them out right away to replace the others.
Thanks for the O’Brien anthology information. You have never mentioned a cheap edition of Gatsby. Not that I care, for I’m rather skeptical about it, but I’m curious to know if it was ever put up to the trade. Tell me what you think of The Sun Also Rises.
I’m not surprised at Galsworthy not being responsive to my stuff. I’ve found that if you don’t respond to another man’s writings the chances are it’s mutual - and except for ‘The Apple Tree’ and, oddly enough, Saint’s Progress, he leaves me cold. I suspect he had some unfortunate idyllic love affair in his youth and whenever that crops into his work it comes alive to me. The subject matter of The Forsyte Saga seemed stuffy to me. I entirely ‘approve’ of him though and liked him personally.
Have you considered coming over?
Always your friend,
Scott
Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins Alpes Maritime Francecirca June 10, 1926
Dear Mr Scribner:
For the first time in over four years I am no longer in financial debt to you - or rather I won’t be when the money from my short story book becomes due me. But in another sense I shall always be in your debt - for your unfailing kindness and confidence and obligingness to me in all my exigencies during that time. Never once was I reminded of my obligations, which were sometimes as high as $4000, with no book in sight.
With every assurance of my deep respect and very real gratitude I remain Faithfully yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Villa St Louis Juan-les-Pins Francecirca June 25, 1926
Dear Max:
Thanks for both letters. We were in Paris having Zelda’s appendix neatly but firmly removed or I would have answered before.
First as to Ernest’s book. I liked it but with certain qualifications. The fiesta, the fishing trip, the minor characters were fine. The lady I didn’t like, perhaps because I don’t like the original. In the mutilated man I thought Ernest bit off more than can yet be chewn between the covers of a book, then lost his nerve a little and edited the more vitalizing details out. He has since told me that something like this happened. Do ask him for the absolute minimum of necessary changes, Max - he’s discouraged about the previous reception of his work by publishers and magazine editors (tho he loved your letter). From the latter (magazine editors) he has had a lot of words and, until Bridges’ offer for the short story (from which he had even before cut out a thousand words on my recommendation), scarcely a single dollar. From the Torrents I expect you’ll have little response. Do you think the Bookman article did him any good?
I roared at the idea of you and the fish in the tree.
O.K. as to Haldeman-Julius.
Will you ask them (your accounting department) to send me an account the ist of August? I’d love to see what a positive statement looks like for the first time in three years.
I am writing Bridges today. I have an offer now for a story at $3500 (rather for six stories). To sell one for $1000 would mean a dead loss of $2500 and as I average only six stories a year I don’t see how I can do it. I hope he’ll understand.
The novel, in abeyance during Zelda’s operation, now goes on apace. This is confidential butLiberty, with certain conditions, has offered me $35,000 sight unseen. I hope to have it done in January.
Do send out a picture to everyone that got that terrible one.
Ever your friend,
Scott
Villa St Louis Juan-les-Pins Francecirca June 28, 1926
Dear Mr Bridges:
It isn’t a question of contracts - it’s frankly a question of money. I hate writing short stories, as you know, and only do my six a year to have the leisure to write my novels at leisure. And since my price has risen to $3500 per story it would mean a dead loss to me of $2500. I’m terribly sorry. If it comes about that a story develops, as they sometimes do, into the type that the big circulation magazines can’t print I’ll send it on to you but that’s all I can promise, because it’s become a sort of chore to me to write a short story having had to cook up so many tasteless morsels under the whip of the national advertisers. I do hate to refuse, Mr Bridges. I hope you’ll understand.
Sincerely,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Villa St Louis Juan-les-Pins Francecirca August 10, 1926
Dear Max:
As to your questions:
(1) — Unless the Americans are first driven out of France (as at present seems hot unlikely) - I’ll be home with the finished manuscript of my book about mid-December. We’ll be a week in New York, then south to Washington and Montgomery to see our respective parents and spend Xmas - and back in New York in mid- January to spend the rest of the winter. Whether the spring will see us back on Long Island or returning to Europe depends on politics, finances and our personal desires.
(2) — The only censorable thing I found in Ernest’s book was the ‘balls’ conversation. I didn’t find the James thing objectionable but then he seems to me to have been dead fifty years.
(3) — I’m sorry Torrents hasn’t done better and delighted about The Sad young Men. Have you sounded out Curtis Brown about an anthology of my stories in England? Still, that better wait till my novel. Don’t forget the August statement.
(4) — God, how much I’ve learned in these two and a half years in Europe. It seems like a decade and I feel pretty old but I wouldn’t have missed it, even its most unpleasant and painful aspects.
(5) — About the Scribners’ story I wrote Bridges. If another ‘Absolution’ turns up he shall have first look.
I do want to see you, Max.
Always your friend,
Scott
Ellerslie Edgemoor, Delaware circa May 12, 1927
Dear Max:
The cane was marvelous. The nicest one I ever saw and infinitely superior to the one mislaid. Need I say I value the inscription? This is the cane I shall never lose.
It seems a shame to put business into a letter thanking you for such a gift but a line about Ernest. It is all bull that he left Liveright about that story. One line at least is pornographic, though please don’t bring my name into the discussion. The thing is - what is a seduction story with the seduction left out? Yet if that is softened it is quite printable. However I trust your judgment, as he should.
I’m sorry about O’Hara. I imagined that this book wasn’t as good as his first - however he doesn’t seem to me now to be an indisputably good risk - he’s mature and developed and ought to be doing first rate things, if ever.
(Explain to Hemingway, why don’t you, that while such an incident might be lost in a book, a story centering around it points it. In other words the material raison d’etre as opposed to the artistic raison d’être of the story is, in part, to show the physiological details of a seduction. If that were possible in America, 20 publishers would be scrambling for James Joyce tomorrow.)
Thanks many times for looking for the old cane. It doesn’t matter. I want to put off the pamphlet for a month until I make up some misunderstandings with the men who wrote the articles.
Many, many sincere thanks, Max. I was touched when I found it at the station.
Scott
Ellerslie Edgemoor, Delaware
Before January 3, 1928
Dear Max:
Patience yet a little while, I beseech thee, and thanks eternally for the deposits. I feel awfully about owing you that money - all I can say is that if book is serialized I’ll pay it back immediately. I work at it all the time but that period of sickness set me back - made a break both in the book and financially so that I had to do those Post stories - which made a further break. Please regard it as a safe investment and not as a risk.
I have no news. I liked Some People by Nicolson and The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Also I loved John’s book and I saw your letter agreeing that it’s his best thing, and the most likely to go. It’s really thought out - oddly enough its least effective moments are the traces of his old manner, the on the whole it’s steadily and cumulatively effective throughout. From the first draft, which was the one I saw, I thought he could have cut 2000 or 3000 words that was mere Conradian stalling around. Whether he did or not I don’t know.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 449
