F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories 1920-1922: This Side of Paradise / Flappers and Philosophers / The Beautiful and the Damned / Tales of the Jazz Age (Library of America)

At the outset of what he called "the greatest, the gaudiest spree in history," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the works that brought him instant fame, mastering the glittering aphoristic prose and keen social observation that would distinguish all his writing. This Library of America volume brings together four volumes that collectively offer the fullest literary expression of one of the most fascinating eras in American life.

This Side of Paradise (1920) gave Fitzgerald the early success that defined and haunted him for the rest of his career. Offering in its Princeton chapters the most enduring portrait of college life in American literature, this lyrical novel records the ardent and often confused longings of its hero's struggles to find love and to formulate a philosophy of life.

Flappers and Philosophers (1920), a collection of accomplished short stories, includes such classics as "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong," "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," and "The Ice Palace."

Fitzgerald continues his dissection of a self-destructive era in his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), as the self-styled aristocrat Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria, are cut off from an inheritance and forced to endure the excruciating dwindling of their fortune. Here New York City, playground for the pleasure-loving Patches and brutal mirror of their dissipation, is portrayed more vividly than anywhere else in Fitzgerald's work.

Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), his second collection of stories, includes the novella "May Day," featuring interlocking tales of debutantes, soldiers, and socialists brought together in the uncertain aftermath of World War I, and "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz," a fable in which the excesses of the Jazz Age take the hallucinatory form of a palace of unfathomable opulence hidden deep in the Montana Rockies.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Young Scott Fitzgerald was not having much luck: he'd flunked out of Princeton, his hope for military glory was dashed with the signing of the armistice on the day he was due to depart for Europe, and his best girl, Zelda, didn't want to date a pauper. In 1920, however, his luck changed when Scribner bought his first manuscript, This Side of Paradise, and introduced him to the world, which welcomed him warmly. This latest Library of America volume includes that first novel plus several works written during Fitzgerald's younger and more vulnerable years: Flappers and Philosophers (short stories, 1920), The Beautiful and Damned (novel, 1922), and Tales of the Jazz Age (short stories, 1922). The short stories include such gems as "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," "The Ice Palace," and "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz." Though all this material is readily available, and, one hopes, always will be, it's wonderful having Fitzgerald's fledgling works together in a quality hardcover. Jazz up your collection with this fine volume.
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Jackson R. Bryer, volume editor, is professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland and the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Critical Reception and, with John Kuehl, Dear Scott / Dear Max: The Fitzgerald–Perkins Correspondence.