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{{short description|1922 story collection by F. Scott Fitzgerald}} |
{{short description|1922 story collection by F. Scott Fitzgerald}} |
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{{More citations needed|date=January 2022}} |
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{{Infobox book |
{{Infobox book |
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| name = Tales of the Jazz Age |
| name = Tales of the Jazz Age |
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| media_type = Print ([[hardcover]] & [[paperback]]) |
| media_type = Print ([[hardcover]] & [[paperback]]) |
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| pub_date = September 22, 1922 |
| pub_date = September 22, 1922 |
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| publisher = [[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |
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| isbn = 1-4341-0001-4 |
| isbn = 1-4341-0001-4 |
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}} |
}} |
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'''''Tales of the Jazz Age''''' (1922) is a collection of |
'''''Tales of the Jazz Age''''' (1922) is a collection of 11 [[short stories]] by American writer [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]. Divided into three separate parts, it includes one of his better-known short stories, "[[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (short story)|The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]". All of the stories had first appeared, independently, in either ''[[Metropolitan Magazine (New York City)|Metropolitan Magazine]]'', ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'', ''[[Smart Set]]'', ''[[Collier's]]'', the ''[[Chicago Sunday Tribune]]'', or ''[[Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913–1936)|Vanity Fair]]''. |
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Due to its adult theme, Fitzgerald did not consider the short story "May Day" to be suitable for the family oriented readership favored by the ''Saturday Evening Post''. He offered this "masterpiece" to [[H. L. Mencken]] and [[George Jean Nathan]], editors at ''[[The Smart Set]]'', where it appeared in the July 1920 issue.{{sfn|Bruccoli|1998|pp=15, 116|loc=Epigraph}} Fitzgerald termed the story "this somewhat unpleasant tale".{{sfn|Bruccoli|1998|p=116|loc=Epigraph}}<ref>{{harvnb|Bryer|2000|p=799}}: In "A Table of Contents: My Last Flappers"</ref> |
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=== "The Jelly-Bean" === |
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"The Jelly-Bean" is a story set in the southern United States, in the city of Tarleton, Georgia. Fitzgerald wrote that he had "a profound affection for Tarleton, but somehow whenever I write a story about it I receive letters from all over the South denouncing me in no uncertain terms." Written shortly after his first novel was published, the author also collaborated with his wife on certain scenes. |
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== Contents == |
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The story momentarily follows the life of a "jelly-bean", or idler, named Jim Powell. An invitation to a dance with the old crowd revives his dreams of social advancement and love, until the consequences of drink and power of money come through and ruin them. |
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Fitzgerald provided his own annotated table of contents for the collection, providing commentary on each story. The works are presented in three categories: ''My Last Flappers'', ''Fantasies'', and ''Unclassified Masterpieces''.{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|p=26}}{{sfn|Fitzgerald|2000|pp=799-802}} The original periodical publication and date are indicated below.{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|p=184|loc=Selected Bibliography}}{{sfn|Bryer|2000|p=1070|loc=Note on the Texts}} |
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=== "The Camel's Back" === |
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* "The Jelly-Bean" (''[[Metropolitan Magazine (New York City)|Metropolitan Magazine]]'', October 1920) |
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In the short introduction to this short story, Fitzgerald wrote, "I suppose that of all the stories I have ever written this one cost me the least travail and perhaps gave me the most amusement." The story, he confessed, was written "with the express purpose of buying a platinum and diamond wrist watch which cost six hundred dollars", and took seven hours to finish. Though it was the least-liked story by Fitzgerald in the volume,{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} it was included in the O. Henry Memorial Collection (of the [[O. Henry Award]]) of 1920. |
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* "The Camel's Back" (''[[Saturday Evening Post]]'', April 24, 1920) |
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* "[[May Day (short story)|May Day]]" (''[[The Smart Set]]'', July 1920) |
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* "Porcelain and Pink" (''The Smart Set'', January 1920)<ref>{{harvnb|Bryer|2000|p=1070}}: As "Porcelain in Pink" (A One Act Play)</ref> |
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'''Fantasies''' |
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Fitzgerald claimed the story was based on actual incident that occurred in [[St. Paul, Minnesota]], in 1919.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1945|p=87}} "Three friends called up during the evening to tell me I had missed some rare doings," Fitzgerald later recalled, "a well-known man-about-town had disguised himself as a camel and, with a taxi-driver as the rear half, managed to attend the wrong party. Aghast with myself for not being there, I spent the next day trying to collect the fragments of the story."{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1945|p=87}} |
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* "Tarquin of Cheapside" (''The Smart Set'', February 1921) |
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* "O Russet Witch!" (''Metropolitan Magazine'', February 1921)<ref>{{harvnb|Bryer|2000|p=1070}}: Published in ''Metro'' under the title "His Russet Witch."</ref> |
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=== "May Day" === |
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* "[[The Lees of Happiness]]" (''[[Chicago Sunday Tribune]]'', December 12, 1920) |
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Published as a novelette in ''The Smart Set'' in July, 1920, "May Day" relates a series of events which took place in the spring of the previous year, during the "general hysteria" which inaugurated the [[Jazz Age]].{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} |
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* "Mr. Icky" (''The Smart Set'', March 1920)<ref>{{harvnb|Bryer|2000|p=1070}}: Published in the CST as "Mr. Icky: The Quintessence of Quaintness in One Act"</ref> |
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* "Jemina" (''[[Vanity Fair (magazines)|Vanity Fair]]'', January 1921)<ref>{{harvnb|Bryer|2000|p=1070}}: Published in ''Vanity Fair'' under the title "Jemina, the Mountain Girl (One of Those Family Feud Stories of the Blue Ridge Mountains with Apologies to [[Stephen Leacock]])"</ref> |
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== Reception == |
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[[File:F Scott Fitzgerald 1921.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.6|[[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]]] |
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Critic [[Hildegarde Hawthorne]] in ''[[The New York Times]]'', October 29, 1922, commented on Fitzgerald's contemporary identification as a writer for [[slicks|slick magazines]], in particular ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''.{{sfn|Bruccoli|1998|p=15}} Hawthorne wrote that stories "give too much of the effect of samples... The book is more like a magazine than a collection of stories by one man, arranged by an editor to suit all tastes and meant to be thrown away after reading."{{sfn|Hawthorne|1922}} |
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Hawthorne closes with an upbeat assessment of Fitzgerald's potential as a fiction writer: "These stories are announced as beginning in the writer's second manner. They certainly show a development in his art, a new turn... this 'second manner' is surely the outcropping of a rich vein that may hold much wealth."{{sfn|Hawthorne|1922}} |
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=== "Porcelain and Pink" === |
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== Critical appraisal == |
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A play, published in ''The Smart Set'' in January, 1920. |
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{{box quote|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote="F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories remain a misunderstood and underrated aspect of his career. They have been dismissed as hackwork and condemned for impeding his serious work. Certainly they are uneven; but Fitzgerald's best stories are among the best in American literature."|source=—Biographer [[Matthew J. Bruccoli]] in ''The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald'' (1989){{sfn|Bruccoli|1998|p=13}}}} |
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Biographer Kenneth Elbe ranks three stories—"The Rich Boy," "Winter Dreams," and "Absolution"—as "among the better ones in all his short fiction." The other selections are reminiscent of Fitzgerald's "contrived magazine fiction."{{sfn|Eble|1963|p=103}} |
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== Fantasias == |
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The following short stories were written in what Fitzgerald called his "second manner". They were designed for the author's own amusement, as he states in his introduction to the volume. |
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According to Elbe, Fitzgerald characterized some of the short fiction as "cheap and without the spontaneity of my first work."{{sfn|Eble|1963|p=103}} Elbe adds that "''Tales of the Jazz Age'' suffers badly from the inclusion of some early writing which might better have remained in ''The Nassau Literary Review'', where it first appeared."{{sfn|Eble|1963|p=54}}<ref>{{harvnb|Bruccoli|1998|p=17}}: "He did not have enough strong stories for ''Tales of the Jazz Age''..."</ref> |
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Several stories in ''Tales of the Jazz Age'' are notable for their "authorial self-consciousness" registered through Fitzgerald's editorial remarks directed towards the reader. Literary Critic John Kuehl writes: |
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In Fitzgerald's introduction, he describes the circumstances in which he wrote "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" : |
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<blockquote> |
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This story was inspired by a remark of [[Mark Twain]]'s to the effect that |
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it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the |
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worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a |
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perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. |
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Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical |
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plot in [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]]'s "Note-books." |
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{{blockquote|[T]he author's voice tends to intrude upon and dominate the stories, whether narrated in the [[Narration | third-person]] or in the no less omniscient [[Narration|first-person]]. The characters tell neither their own stories nor other people's tales; with few exceptions, they are objects viewed through authorial eyes instead of filters through whom the action unfolds.{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|p=27}}}} |
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The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this |
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startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati: |
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<br> |
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"Sir-- |
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<br> |
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I have read the story Benjamin Button in Collier's and I wish to say |
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that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen |
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many peices{{sic}} of cheese in my life but of all the peices{{sic}} of cheese I |
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have ever seen you are the biggest peice.{{sic}} I hate to waste a peice{{sic}} of |
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stationary{{sic}} on you but I will." |
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</blockquote> |
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* "[[Tarquin of Cheapside]]" |
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Kuehl argues that this "egotistical foregrounding" tends to squander Fitzgerald's literary talents in favor of an intrusive approach that fails to adequately dramatize his narrative.{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|p=27}} |
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Written almost six years before being added to this collection, this story was written in Fitzgerald's undergraduate days at [[Princeton University|Princeton]]. Considerably revised, it was published in the |
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"Smart Set" in 1921.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} |
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== Theme == |
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* "[[Oh Russet Witch!]]" |
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The stories comprising Fitzgerald's earliest professional fiction were largely concerned with inherited wealth and the "indolent rich."{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|pp=30-31}} These preoccupations transitioned, however, toward narratives involving a broader spectrum of social classes, including "businessmen, writers, performers, priests and white-collar workers." Critic John Kuehl reports that this emerging focus on essentially democratic concerns "reaches its apotheosis in '[[May Day (short story) | May Day]],' where various socioeconomic classes meet."{{sfn|Kuehl|1991|pp=30-31}} |
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This story was written just after the author completed the first draft of his second novel. However it may seem, the story was supposed to be in the present time/tense.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} It was published in the ''Metropolitan''. |
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* "[[The Lees of Happiness]]" |
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* "[[Mr. Icky]]" |
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* "[[Jemina (short story)|Jemina]]" |
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Written, like "Tarquin of Cheapside", at Princeton, this sketch was published years later in ''Vanity Fair''. |
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== References == |
== References == |
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=== Citations === |
=== Citations === |
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{{reflist}} |
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}} |
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=== |
=== Sources === |
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{{refbegin}} |
{{refbegin|indent=yes|30em}} |
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* {{ |
* {{Cite book | editor-last = Bruccoli | editor-first = Matthew J. | editor-link = Matthew J. Bruccoli | title = The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald | chapter = Preface | year = 1998 | publisher = [[Simon & Schuster]] | location = New York City | url = https://archive.org/details/shortstoriesoffs0000fitz_n1j6 | url-access = registration | isbn = 0-684-84250-5 | via = Internet Archive}} |
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* {{Cite book | last = Bryer | first = Jackson R. | title = F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922 | chapter = Chronology and Notes | year = 2000 | pages = 1057–1071 | publisher = [[Library of America]] | location = New York | url = https://archive.org/details/novelsstories1920000fitz | url-access = registration | isbn = 1-883011-84-1 | via = Internet Archive}} |
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* {{Cite book | last = Eble | first = Kenneth E. | title = F. Scott Fitzgerald | year = 1963 | publisher = [[Twayne Publishers]] | location = Boston, Massachusetts | url = https://archive.org/details/fitzgerald0000unse_w0e5 | url-access = registration | lccn = 63-10953 | via = Internet Archive}} |
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* {{Cite book | last = Fitzgerald | first = F. Scott | author-link = F. Scott Fitzgerald | title = F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922 | year = 2000 | publisher = [[Library of America]] | location = New York | url = https://archive.org/details/fitzgerald0000unse_w0e5 | url-access = registration | isbn = 1-883011-84-1 | via = Internet Archive}} |
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* {{Cite book | last = Fitzgerald | first = F. Scott | author-link = F. Scott Fitzgerald | editor-last = Wilson | editor-first = Edmund | editor-link = Edmund Wilson | title = The Crack-Up | year = 1945 | publisher = [[New Directions Publishing|New Directions]] | location = New York | url = https://archive.org/details/cerackup0000fsco/ | url-access = registration | isbn = 0-8112-0051-5 | via = Internet Archive | ref = none}} |
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* {{Cite news | last = Hawthorne | first = Hildegarde | author-link = Hildegarde Hawthorne | title = Latest Works of Short Fiction | date = October 29, 1922 | newspaper = [[The New York Times]] | location = New York City | url = https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/specials/fitzgerald-jazz.html | url-access = subscription | access-date = January 10, 2024}} |
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* {{Cite book | last = Kuehl | first = John | editor-last = Weaver | editor-first = Gordon | editor-link = Gordon Weaver | title = F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of the Short Fiction | year = 1991 | publisher = [[Twayne Publishers]] | location = Boston, Massachusetts | url = https://archive.org/details/fscottfitzgerald0000kueh | url-access = registration | isbn = 0-8057-8332-6 | via = Internet Archive}} |
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{{refend}} |
{{refend}} |
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== External links == |
== External links == |
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{{Wikisource|Tales of the Jazz Age|''Tales of the Jazz Age''}} |
{{Wikisource|Tales of the Jazz Age|''Tales of the Jazz Age''}} |
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* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/f-scott-fitzgerald/short-fiction|Display Name=An omnibus collection of Fitzgerald's short fiction, including ''{{PAGENAMEBASE}}''|noitalics=true}} |
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*[https:// |
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6695 ''Tales of the Jazz Age''] at [[Project Gutenberg]] |
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* {{librivox book | title=Tales of the Jazz Age | author=F. Scott FITZGERALD}} |
* {{librivox book | title=Tales of the Jazz Age | author=F. Scott FITZGERALD}} |
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[[Category:1922 short story collections]] |
[[Category:1922 short story collections]] |
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[[Category:Short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald]] |
[[Category:Short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald]] |
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[[Category:Charles Scribner's Sons books]] |
Latest revision as of 00:55, 17 December 2024
Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
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Cover artist | John Held, Jr. |
Language | English |
Genre | Short stories |
Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
Publication date | September 22, 1922 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
ISBN | 1-4341-0001-4 |
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) is a collection of 11 short stories by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Divided into three separate parts, it includes one of his better-known short stories, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". All of the stories had first appeared, independently, in either Metropolitan Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Smart Set, Collier's, the Chicago Sunday Tribune, or Vanity Fair.
Due to its adult theme, Fitzgerald did not consider the short story "May Day" to be suitable for the family oriented readership favored by the Saturday Evening Post. He offered this "masterpiece" to H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, editors at The Smart Set, where it appeared in the July 1920 issue.[1] Fitzgerald termed the story "this somewhat unpleasant tale".[2][3]
Contents
[edit]Fitzgerald provided his own annotated table of contents for the collection, providing commentary on each story. The works are presented in three categories: My Last Flappers, Fantasies, and Unclassified Masterpieces.[4][5] The original periodical publication and date are indicated below.[6][7]
My Last Flappers
- "The Jelly-Bean" (Metropolitan Magazine, October 1920)
- "The Camel's Back" (Saturday Evening Post, April 24, 1920)
- "May Day" (The Smart Set, July 1920)
- "Porcelain and Pink" (The Smart Set, January 1920)[8]
Fantasies
- "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (The Smart Set, June 1922)
- "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Collier's, May 27, 1922)
- "Tarquin of Cheapside" (The Smart Set, February 1921)
- "O Russet Witch!" (Metropolitan Magazine, February 1921)[9]
Unclassified Masterpieces
- "The Lees of Happiness" (Chicago Sunday Tribune, December 12, 1920)
- "Mr. Icky" (The Smart Set, March 1920)[10]
- "Jemina" (Vanity Fair, January 1921)[11]
Reception
[edit]Critic Hildegarde Hawthorne in The New York Times, October 29, 1922, commented on Fitzgerald's contemporary identification as a writer for slick magazines, in particular The Saturday Evening Post.[12] Hawthorne wrote that stories "give too much of the effect of samples... The book is more like a magazine than a collection of stories by one man, arranged by an editor to suit all tastes and meant to be thrown away after reading."[13]
Hawthorne closes with an upbeat assessment of Fitzgerald's potential as a fiction writer: "These stories are announced as beginning in the writer's second manner. They certainly show a development in his art, a new turn... this 'second manner' is surely the outcropping of a rich vein that may hold much wealth."[13]
Critical appraisal
[edit]"F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories remain a misunderstood and underrated aspect of his career. They have been dismissed as hackwork and condemned for impeding his serious work. Certainly they are uneven; but Fitzgerald's best stories are among the best in American literature."
Biographer Kenneth Elbe ranks three stories—"The Rich Boy," "Winter Dreams," and "Absolution"—as "among the better ones in all his short fiction." The other selections are reminiscent of Fitzgerald's "contrived magazine fiction."[15]
According to Elbe, Fitzgerald characterized some of the short fiction as "cheap and without the spontaneity of my first work."[15] Elbe adds that "Tales of the Jazz Age suffers badly from the inclusion of some early writing which might better have remained in The Nassau Literary Review, where it first appeared."[16][17]
Several stories in Tales of the Jazz Age are notable for their "authorial self-consciousness" registered through Fitzgerald's editorial remarks directed towards the reader. Literary Critic John Kuehl writes:
[T]he author's voice tends to intrude upon and dominate the stories, whether narrated in the third-person or in the no less omniscient first-person. The characters tell neither their own stories nor other people's tales; with few exceptions, they are objects viewed through authorial eyes instead of filters through whom the action unfolds.[18]
Kuehl argues that this "egotistical foregrounding" tends to squander Fitzgerald's literary talents in favor of an intrusive approach that fails to adequately dramatize his narrative.[18]
Theme
[edit]The stories comprising Fitzgerald's earliest professional fiction were largely concerned with inherited wealth and the "indolent rich."[19] These preoccupations transitioned, however, toward narratives involving a broader spectrum of social classes, including "businessmen, writers, performers, priests and white-collar workers." Critic John Kuehl reports that this emerging focus on essentially democratic concerns "reaches its apotheosis in ' May Day,' where various socioeconomic classes meet."[19]
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ Bruccoli 1998, pp. 15, 116, Epigraph.
- ^ Bruccoli 1998, p. 116, Epigraph.
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 799: In "A Table of Contents: My Last Flappers"
- ^ Kuehl 1991, p. 26.
- ^ Fitzgerald 2000, pp. 799–802.
- ^ Kuehl 1991, p. 184, Selected Bibliography.
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 1070, Note on the Texts.
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 1070: As "Porcelain in Pink" (A One Act Play)
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 1070: Published in Metro under the title "His Russet Witch."
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 1070: Published in the CST as "Mr. Icky: The Quintessence of Quaintness in One Act"
- ^ Bryer 2000, p. 1070: Published in Vanity Fair under the title "Jemina, the Mountain Girl (One of Those Family Feud Stories of the Blue Ridge Mountains with Apologies to Stephen Leacock)"
- ^ Bruccoli 1998, p. 15.
- ^ a b Hawthorne 1922.
- ^ Bruccoli 1998, p. 13.
- ^ a b Eble 1963, p. 103.
- ^ Eble 1963, p. 54.
- ^ Bruccoli 1998, p. 17: "He did not have enough strong stories for Tales of the Jazz Age..."
- ^ a b Kuehl 1991, p. 27.
- ^ a b Kuehl 1991, pp. 30–31.
Sources
[edit]- Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. (1998). "Preface". The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York City: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84250-5 – via Internet Archive.
- Bryer, Jackson R. (2000). "Chronology and Notes". F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. New York: Library of America. pp. 1057–1071. ISBN 1-883011-84-1 – via Internet Archive.
- Eble, Kenneth E. (1963). F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. LCCN 63-10953 – via Internet Archive.
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2000). F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. New York: Library of America. ISBN 1-883011-84-1 – via Internet Archive.
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1945). Wilson, Edmund (ed.). The Crack-Up. New York: New Directions. ISBN 0-8112-0051-5 – via Internet Archive.
- Hawthorne, Hildegarde (October 29, 1922). "Latest Works of Short Fiction". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
- Kuehl, John (1991). Weaver, Gordon (ed.). F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-8332-6 – via Internet Archive.