Fitzgerald: The Lost Decade: Short Stories from Esquire , 1936–1941

by F. Scott Fitzgerald , Edited by James L. W. West, III

• ISBN13: 9780521885300
• ISBN10: 0521885302
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

During the last six years of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald was an Esquire author. Between 1934 and 1940, Fitzgerald sold some forty-five pieces of writing to the magazine - fiction, nonfiction, and personal essays. This volume of the Cambridge Edition includes thirteen short stories published by Fitzgerald in Esquire, together with the entire Pat Hobby Series -seventeen stories about an aging screenwriter scrambling to make a living in Hollywood during the 1930s. One other story - "Dearly Beloved," submitted to Esquire but not published there - is included as an appendix. The volume provides restored, accurate texts based on Fitzgerald's surviving manuscripts, typescripts, and proofs. A textual apparatus records editorial decisions; explanatory notes identify people, places, literary works, historical events, and references to Hollywood actors, directors, and films. The volume also includes selected facsimiles of Fitzgerald's manuscripts and typescripts for the Esquire writings.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Esquire Stories, 1935-1941: Three acts of music

The ants at Princeton

'I didn't get over'

An alcoholic case

The long way out

The guest in room nineteen

In the holidays

Financing Finnegan

Design in plaster

The lost decade

On an ocean wave

The woman from '21'

Three hours between planes

The Pat Hobby Series, 1940-1941: Pat Hobby's Christmas wish

A man in the way

'Boil some water - lots of it'

Teamed with genius

Pat Hobby and Orson Welles

Pat Hobby's secret

Pat Hobby, putative father

The homes of the stars

Pat Hobby does his bit

Pat Hobby's preview

No harm trying

A patriotic short

On the trail of Pat Hobby

Fun in an artist's studio

Two old-timers

Mightier than the sword

Pat Hobby's college days

Record of variants

Explanatory notes

Illustrations

'Dearly beloved'

Publication and earnings

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