A Life in Letters
Page 14
It amazes me, Max, to see you with your discernment and your fine intelligence, fall for that whole complicated fake. Your chief critical flaw is to confuse mere earnestness with artistic sincerity. On two of Ring’s jackets have been statements that he never wrote a dishonest word (maybe it’s one jacket). But Ring and many of the very greatest artists have written thousands of words in plays, poems and novels which weren’t even faintly sincere or ernest and were yet artisticly sincere. The latter term is not a synonym for plodding ernestness. Zola did not say the last word about literature; nor the first.
I append all the data on my fall book, and in closing I apologize for seeming impassioned about Tom and his work when niether the man or what he writes has ever been personally inimical to me. He is simply the scapegoat for the mood Rascoe has put me in and, tho I mean every word of it, I probably wouldn’t have wasted all this paper on a book that won’t sell + will be dead in a month + an imitative school that will be dead by its own weight in a year or so, if the news about Liveright hadn’t come on top of the Rascoe review and ruined my disposition. Good luck to Drummond.1 I’m sure one or two critics will mistake it for profound stuff—maybe even Mencken who has a weakness in that direction. But I think you should look closer.
With best wishes as always, Max,
Your Friend
DATA ON NEW FITZGERALD BOOK.
Title
ALL THE SAD YOUNG MEN
(9 short stories)
Print list of previous books as before with addition of this title under “Stories”. Binding uniform with others.
Jacket plain (,as you suggest,) with text instead of picture
Dedication: To Ring and Ellis Lardner
The Stories (now under revision) will reach you by July 15th. No proofs need be sent over here.
It will be fully up to the other collections and will contain only one of those Post stories that people were so snooty about. (You have read only one of the stories (“Absolution”)—all the others were so good that I had difficulty in selling them, except two.
They are, in approximate order to be used in book:
1.
The Rich Boy (Just finished. Serious story and very good)
13,000
wds.
2.
Absolution (From Mercury)
6,500
"
3.
Winter Dreams (A sort of 1st draft of the Gatsby idea from Metropolitan 1923)
9,000
"
4.
Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of Wales (Fantastic Jazz, so good that Lorimer + Long refused it. From McCalls)
5,000
"
5.
The Baby Party (From Hearsts. A fine story)
5,000
"
6.
Dice, Brass Knuckles and Guitar (From Hearsts. Exuberant Jazz in my early manner)
8,000
"
7.
The Sensible Thing (Story about Zelda + me. All true. From Liberty)
5,000
"
8.
Hot + Cold Blood (good story, from Hearsts)
6,000
"
9.
Gretchen’s Forty Winks (from Post. Farrar, Christian Gauss and Jesse Williams1 thought it my best. It isn’t.)
7,000
"
Total–about
64,500
(And possibly one other short one)
This title is because seven stories deal with young men of my generation in rather unhappy moods. The ones to mention on the outside wrap are the 1st five or the 1st three stories.
Rather not use advertising appropriation in Times—people who read Times Book Review won’t be interested in me. Recommend Mercury, the F. P. A. page of the World, Literary Review and Fanny Bucher2 page of Chicago Tribune.
No blurbs in ad. as I think the blurb doesn’t help any more. Suggestion.
Charles Scribners Sons
Announce a new book of short stories
by
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Advertising Notes
Suggested line for jacket: “Show transition from his early exuberant stories of youth which created a new type of American girl and the later and more serious mood which produced The Great Gatsby and marked him as one of the half dozen masters of English prose now writing in America. . . . What other writer has shown such unexpected developments, such versatility, changes of pace”
ect – ect – ect – I think that, toned down as you see fit, is the general line. Don’t say “Fitzgerald has done it!” + then in the next sentence that I am an artist. People who are interested in artists aren’t interested in people who have “done it.” Both are O.K. but don’t belong in the same ad. This is an author’s quibble. All authors have one quibble.
However, you have always done well by me (Except for Black’s1 memorable excretion in the Allumni Weekly: do you remember “Make it a Fitzgerald Christmas!”) and I leave it to you. If 100,000 copies are not sold I shall shift to Mitchell Kennerley.2
By the way what has become of Black? I hear he has written a very
original and profound novel. It is said to be about an inarticulate farmer and his struggles with the “soil” and his sexual waverings between his inarticulate wife and an inarticulate sheep. He finally chooses his old pioneering grandmother as the most inarticulate of all but finds her in bed with none other than our old friend THE HIRED MAN CHRISTY!
CHRISTY HAD DONE IT!
[In 1962 Fitzgerald’s famous letter to Perkins was sold at auction at Chrystie’s (not old man Christy’s) for £7000.]3
TO: Van Wyck Brooks
Postmarked June 13, 1925
ALS, 1 p. Bruccoli
Paris, France
Dear Brooks:
I read the James book,4 so did Zelda + Ernest Hemminway + everyone I’ve been able to lend it to and I think it rises high above either Bunny’s carping or Seldes tag on it. I like it even better than the Mark Twain.5 It is exquisitely done + entirely facinating
One reason it is of particular interest to us over here is obvious. In my own case I have no such delicate doubts—nor does anyone need to have them now since the American scene has become so complicated + ramified but the question of freshening material always exists. I shall come back after one more novel.
Why didn’t you touch more on James impotence (physical) and its influence? I think if hadn’t had at least one poignant emotional love affair with an American girl on American soil he might have lived there twice as long, tried twice as hard, had the picaresque past of Huck Finn + yet never struck roots. Novelists like he (him) + in a sense (to descend a good bit) me, have to have love as a main concern since our interest lies outside the economic struggle or the life of violence, as conditioned to some extent by our lives from 16–21.
However this is just shooting in the dark at a target on which you have expended your fine talent in full daylight. It was a really thrilling pleasure for a writer to read. Thanking you for writing me about my book so kindly + for sending me yours.
Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Gilbert Seldes
June-July 1925
ALS, 1 p. Glenn Horowitz
14 Rue de Tilsitt
Paris, France
Dear Gilbert:
Thank you a thousand times for your entheusiasm about Gatsby. I believe I’d rather stir your discriminating entheusiasm than anyone’s in America, (did I tell you this before?), and to be really believed-in again, to feel “exciting”, is tremendously satisfactory. My new novel may be my last for ten years or so—that is if it sells no better than Gatsby (which has only gone a little over 20,000 copies) for I may go to Hollywood + try to learn the moving picture business from the bottom up.
We leave for Antibes on August 4th—Zelda and I in our car (the same one) and nurse + baby by train. There we shall spend one month growing brown and healthy—then return here for the fall. Beyond January
our plans are vague Nice followed by Oxford or Cambridge for the summer perhaps. Don Stuart has been here—he seemed horribly pretentious to me and more than usually wrong—in fact it was a shock to see the change in him. I see Hemminway a great deal and before he left, something of Gerald—both of them1 are thoroughly charming.
If you + Amanda come over in the Spring we may have a villa big enough for you to visit us in Nice. God, I’m wild for the Rivierra. Love from us to you both
Scott
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. July 8, 1925
ALS, 3 pp. Princeton University
14 Rue de Tilsitt
Paris, France
Dear Max:
This is another one of those letters with a thousand details in them, so I’ll number the details + thus feel I’m getting them out of the way.
(1.) Will you have an account (bi-yearly statement) sent me as soon as you can. I don’t know how much I owe you but it must be between 3 and 4 thousand dollars. I want to see how much chance All The Sad Young Men has of making up this difference. Thanks many times for the 700.00. It will enable me to go ahead next month with Our Type1 which is getting shaped up both in paper and in my head. I’d rather not tell about it just yet.
Is Gatsby to be published in England. I’m awfully anxious to have it published there. If Collins won’t have it can’t you try Jonathan Cape? Do let me know about this.
(3) Will you tell me the figures on Ring’s books? Also on Through the Wheat. I re-read the latter the other day + think its marvellous. Together with the Enormous Room2 and, I think, Gatsby, its much the best thing that has come out of American fiction since the war. I exclude Anderson because since reading Three Lives and his silly autobiography my feeling about him has entirely changed. He is a short story writer only.
I spent $48.00 having a sketch of me done by Ivan Opfer. It was lousy and he says he’ll try another. If its no good I’ll send a photo. The stories for the book leave here day after tomorrow.
I think the number of Americans in Europe has hurt the book market. Gatsby is the last principle book of mine that I want to publish in the spring. I believe that from now on fall will be much the best season.
I’m sorry about that outburst at Tom. But I am among those who suffer from the preoccupation of literary America with the drab as subject matter. Seldes points this out in a great review of Gatsby for the London Criterion.3 Also he says “Fitzgerald has certainly the best chance at present of becoming our finest artist in fiction”. Quite a bit from Gilbert who only likes Ring, Edith Wharton Joyce and Charlie Chaplin. Please get Myer to put it on the cover of the new book and delete the man who says I “deserve the huzza’s of those who want to further a worthy American Literature.” Perhaps I deserve their huzzas but I’d rather they’d express their appreciation in some less boisterous way.
I’m sending back the questionairre.
I suppose that by now Gatsby is over 18,000. I hope to God it reaches 20,000. It sounds so much better. Shane Leslie thought it was fine.
No news, Max. I was drinking hard in May but for the last month I’ve been working like a dog. I still think Count Orget’s Ball by Radiguet would sell like wildfire. If I had the time I’d translate it myself.
Scott
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. July 10, 1925
ALS, 1 p. Princeton University
14 Rue de Tilsitt.
Paris, France
Dear Max:
(1.) I’m afraid in sending the book I forgot the dedication, which should read
TO RING AND ELLIS LARDNER
will you see to this?
(2.) I’ve asked The Red Book to let you know the first possible date on “The Rich Boy”
(3.) I’m terribly sorry about the whooping cough but I’ll have to admit it did give me a laugh.
(4.) Max, it amuses me when praise comes in on the “structure” of the book—because it was you who fixed up the structure, not me. And don’t think I’m not grateful for all that sane and helpful advice about it.
(5) The novel has begun. I’d rather tell you nothing about it quite yet. No news. We had a great time in Antibes and got very brown + healthy. In case you don’t place it its the penninsula between Cannes + Nice on the Rivierra where Napoeleon landed on his return from Elba.
As Ever
Scott.
TO: John Peale Bishop
c. August 9, 1925
ALS, 1 p. Princeton University
14 Rue de Tilsitt
Paris, France
Dear John:
Thank you for your most pleasant, full, discerning and helpful letter about The Great Gatsby. It is about the only critisism that the book has had which has been intelligable, save a letter from Mrs. Wharton.1 I shall duly ponder, or rather I have pondered, what you say about accuracy—I’m afraid I haven’t quite reached the ruthless artistry which would let me cut out an exquisite bit that had no place in the context. I can cut out the almost exquisite, the adequate, even the brilliant—but a true accuracy is, as you say, still in the offing. Also you are right about Gatsby being blurred and patchy. I never at any one time saw him clear myself—for he started as one man I knew and then changed into myself—the amalgam was never complete in my mind.
Your novel sounds facinating and I’m crazy to see it. I am beginning a new novel next month on the Rivierra. I understand that MacLiesh1 is there, among other people (at Antibes where we are going). Paris has been a madhouse this spring and, as you can imagine, we were in the thick of it. I don’t know when we’re coming back—maybe never. We’ll be here till Jan. (except for a month in Antibes, and then we go Nice for the Spring, with Oxford for next summer. Love to Margaret and many thanks for the kind letter.
Scott
TO: John Peale Bishop
Postmarked September 21, 1925
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
Paris
Dear Sir:
The enclosed explains itself. Meanwhile I went to Antibes and liked Archie Macliesh enormously. Also his poem, though it seems strange to like anything so outrageously derivative. T. S. of P. was an original in comparison.
I’m crazy to see your novel. I’m starting a new one myself. There was no one at Antibes this summer except me, Zelda, the Valentino, the Murphy’s, Mistinguet, Rex Ingram, Dos Passos, Alice Terry, the Mclieshes, Charlie Bracket, Maude Kahn, Esther Murphy, Marguerite Namara, E. Phillips Openhiem, Mannes the violinist, Floyd Dell, Max and Chrystal Eastman, ex-Premier Orlando, Ettienne de Beaumont—just a real place to rough it, an escape from all the world. But we had a great time. I don’t know when we’re coming home—
The Hemmingways are coming to dinner so I close with best wishes.
Scott
TO: Deems Taylor2
September–October 1925
ALS, 1 p. Collection of Marcia and
Maurice Neville
14 Rue de Tilsitt, Paris, France
Dear Deems:
Your letter followed me all around Europe with that elusive circularity peculiar to correspondence. I was deeply touched by your entheusiasm by your writing to tell me of it. At first, you know, I thought Gatsby must be a terrible failure—nothing came in but a snotty (and withal ungrammatical) paragraph by Ruth Hale, another paragraph in the World headed “Fitzgerald’s latest is a dud” and some faint praise from, God help us, The Times! It took things like your letter and Seldes’ and Menckens’ cordial reviews to make me sit up and take nourishment. I was for ending it all at Hollywood in the movies. Thank you more than I can say both for the thought and, especially, the act.
Sincerely
F Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. October 20, 1925
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
14 Rue de Tilsitt
Dear Max:
Thanks for your letters of 6th, 7th, + 12th. I’m delighted that you like the 1st four stories. The reason I want to get proof on The Rich Boy is that the original of the her
o wants something changed—something that would identify him.
I’m relieved that Gatsby is coming out this Spring in England—your first letter implied the Fall of 1927! But I’m disappointed that its only reached 19,640 copies. I hoped that it had reached nearer 25,000.
I was interested in the figures on Tom Boyd + Ring—needless to say I won’t mention them, but I thought Through the Wheat had sold much more. Considering the success of “What Price Glory?”1 I don’t understand it. And Points of Honor2 only 1545! I’m astonished, and appalled. I see the New Yorker and The Nation (or New Republic) mention Samuel Drummond favorably.
There is no news. The novel progresses slowly + carefully with much destroying + revision. If you hear anything about the Gatsby dramatization—cast, date, ect. do let me know.
I wired you yesterday for $100.00 which brings me up to $3171.66 again—depressing thought! Will I ever be square. The short stories probably won’t sell 5,000
Somewhat Mournfully
Scott
P.S. Did the Gatsby syndication with Bell Syndicate fall through?
P.S. A year + 1/2 ago Knopf published a book (novel) by Ruth Suckow called Country People. So he didn’t risk her short stories. It didn’t go. But Mencken + I + many others think her stories wonderful. They’re in the Smart Set (years 1921, 1922, 1923) and the American Mercury (1924, 1925), just enough to make about an 80,000 word book. A great press assurred—she could be the American Katherine Mansfield.1 This fine book The Perrenial Bachelor by Miss Parrish2 derives from her I think. (She’s the best woman writer in American under 50)
Why not approach her? Knopf seems to be letting her ride. You could probably get the next novel if she isn’t signed up + you tried the stories first. I think this is an A.1. tip.
Scott
TO: Marya Mannes3
Postmarked October 21, 1925
ALS, 3 pp. Collection of Marcia
and Maurice Neville
14 Rue de Tilsitt
Paris, France