The Beautiful and the Damned - Softcover

Fitzgerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0020199708 ISBN 13: 9780020199700

Publisher: Scribner Paper Fiction, 1988

Synopsis

A captivating and glamorous tale of squandered talent that defined "The Lost Generation" of 1920s New York.

Anthony Patch and Gloria Gibson are the golden children of the Jazz Age. They marry and embark on a life of glittering parties, lavish expenditure and scandalous revelry. When the money dries up their marriage founders. In this wistful novel Fitzgerald portrays the decline of youthful promise with devastating clarity.

About this title

Book Description:

This edition includes a detailed account of the composition of the novel, a textual apparatus, a chronology of composition, and, uniquely, three versions of the ending. Explanatory notes situate The Beautiful and Damned in its times and deepen the reader's understanding of Fitzgerald's sources for the novel.

From the Inside Flap:

Following the great critical and financial success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Beautiful and the Damned in 1922. An immediate success upon its first publication, Fitzgerald's second novel is a dazzling portrait of love and life among the beautiful people. Through the story of two newlyweds, Anthony Patch of New York and Gloria Gilbert of Kansas City, Fitzgerald flawlessly captures the heady atmosphere and jaded values of the Jazz Age. Patch, expecting to become the sole heir to his grandfather's millions, embraces a life of endless parties and intellectual pretensions. In Gloria, he finds an exquisite ornament and a passionate lover. The couple whirls through days that mirror Fitzgerald's own--a fast life amid a smart set for which there is never enough cash. Beginning with wit and clever repartee, The Beautiful and the Damned quickly becomes a scathing chronicle of a dying marriage and a hedonistic society where beauty is all too fleeting. Through the character of Richard Caramel, a successful hack writer whose talent fails as he prospers, Fitzgerald caricatures himself. But today's readers will find an even more poignant self-portrait of Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda in Anthony and Gloria, a couple whose days of wine and roses fade quickly toward a tragic end.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Paper Fiction
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0020199708
• ISBN 13: 9780020199700
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464