Signed book: This Side of Paradise. Third printing. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. Hardcover, 5.25 x 7.75, 305 pages. Signed on the tipped-in "Author's Apology" slip in fountain pen, "Sincerely, F. Scott Fitzgerald." Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: VG/None, with a reinforced front hinge.
Though Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton in 1917, his university years permanently shaped his life and career; it was in this world of privilege that he devoted himself to finding his voice as a writer. In 1919 Scribner's accepted his manuscript for This Side of Paradise on its third submission, and the book was released to wild success the following year.
This is one of approximately five hundred examples of This Side of Paradise issued with the special signed 'Author's Apology' leaf tipped in before the title page. According to the Fitzgerald bibliography by Bruccoli, five hundred copies of the third printing have this special tipped-in glossy leaf bearing 'The Author's Apology' signed by Fitzgerald, prepared for a meeting of the American Booksellers Association and dated May 1920. Boasting an ideal signature on the rare apology page featuring a portrait of the young Jazz Age author, this book is a true literary treasure.
The printed apology contains a small bust photo of Fitzgerald and beneath that, the text reads:
"I don't want to talk about myself because I'll admit that I did that somewhat in this book. In fact, to write it took three months; to conceive it—three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life. The idea of writing it came on the first day of last July: it was a substitute form of dissipation.
My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence: An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.
So, gentlemen, consider all the cocktails mentioned in this book drunk by me as a toast to the American Booksellers Association." Despite what he says in the apology, Fitzgerald actually began writing the novel in 1917. Charles Scribner's Sons rejected two versions of it that he had submitted the next year. Fitzgerald began rewriting the book again in July 1919, and Scribner's accepted the work that September. Published late in March 1920, This Side of Paradise was hugely successful and launched Fitzgerald's reputation as the chronicler of the Jazz Age. Bruccoli A5.I.c.
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