It always gets stuck in that place. Put on “Old Man River,” or something of Louis Bromfields.
Pray gravity to move your bowels. Its little we get done for us in this world. Answer.
Scott
Enjoyed your Wilson article enormously. Not so Thompson affair.
TO: Harold Ober
April 8, 1928
Wire. Lilly Library
Wilmington, Delaware
HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO FRANCE FOR THREE MONTHS AS I TOLD YOU IN OUR TALK FRIDAY CAN YOU DEPOSIT FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS CASH MONDAY MORNING HAVE THE FIRST STORY AT THE TYPISTS NOW AND SHOULD BE OFF BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND I SHALL DO AT LEAST ONE MORE BEFORE WE SAIL WHICH ACCORDING TO PRESENT PLANS WILL BE THE TWENTY FIRST THIS MONTH
SCOTT FITZGERALD.
TO: Harold Ober
June 3, 1928
Wire. Lilly Library
Paris
TWO MORE CHAPTERS FINISHED ALL COMPLETED AUGUST1 CAN YOU DEPOSIT ONEFIFTY AT ONCE AND ONETHOUSAND WHEN STORY IS PAID
TO: Sylvia Beach2
ALS, 1 p. and inscription in
The Great Gatsby. Princeton University
Left to right: Adrienne Monnier, Lucie Chamson, André Chamson, Zelda Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Sylvia Beach.
TO: Ernest Hemingway
c. July 1928
ALS, 2 pp. John F. Kennedy Library
Paris
Teenie-weenie Corner
Sunshineville.
Precious Papa, Bull-fighter, Gourmand ect.
It has come to my ears
That you have been seen bycycling through Kansas, chewing + spitting a mixture of goat’s meat + chicory which the natives collect + sell for artery-softener and market-glut
That Bumby has won the Benjamin Altman scholarship at Cundle School + taken first prizes in Comparitive Epistomology, Diseases of Cormorants + Small Vultures, Amateur Gyncology + Intestinal Hysterics
That you are going to fight Jim Tully1 in Washdog Wisconsin on Decoration Day in a chastity belt with your hair cut á la garconne.
Is it all true?
We are friends with the Murphys again. Talked about you a great deal + while we tried to say only kind things we managed to get in a few good cracks that would amuse you—about anybody else—which is what you get for being so far away. Incidently called twice on Hadley—she was both times out but saw Bumby once + think he’s the best kid I ever saw by 1000 miles.
Well, old Mackerel Snatcher,2 wolf a Wafer + + a Beaker of blood for me,—and when you come Shadowboxing into my life again with your new similes for “swewa” and “wousy” (which, as you doubtless notice, you’ve given to the world) no one will be glader than your
Devoted Friend
Scott Fitzg—
While in America don’t cast any doubt on my statement that you held a bridgehead (or was it a hophead) at Caporetto for three days + utterly baffled the 2nd Austrian Army Corps. In 50 yrs all the people that could have denied it will be dead or busy holding their own bridgeheads—like Lawrence Stallings, who is slowly taking to himself the communal exploits of the 5th + 6th Marines. “Hebuterne—of course I know it—I took that village.”
Do send Lorimer a story. I read Mencken’s public apology.3 Not bad for an old man who has had his troubles. God help us all! Have seen a good deal of Joyce. Please come back—will be here till Aug 20th 58 Rue de Vaugirard. Then back to America for a few months.
Best to Pauline!
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. July 21, 1928
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
Paris
Dear Max
(1) The novel goes fine. I think its quite wonderful + I think those who’ve seen it (for I’ve read it around a little) have been quite excited. I was encouraged the other day, when James Joyce came to dinner, when he said “Yes, I expect to finish my novel in three or four years more at the latest” + he works 11 hrs a day to my intermittent 8. Mine will be done sure in September.
(2) Did you get my letter about André Chamson?1 Really Max, you’re missing a great opportunity if you don’t take that up. Radiguet was perhaps obscene—Chamson is absolutely not—he’s head over heals the best young man here, like Ernest + Thornton Wilder rolled into one. This Hommes de la Route (Road Menders) is his 2nd novel + all but won the Prix Goncourt—the story of men building a road, with all the force of K. Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil—not a bit like Tom Boyds bogus American husbandmen. Moreover, tho I know him only slightly and have no axe to grind, I have every faith in him as an extraordinary personality like France + Proust. Incidently King Vidor2 (who made The Crowd + The Big Parade) is making a picture of it next summer. If you have any confidence in my judgement do at least get a report on it + let me know what you decide. Ten years from now he’ll be beyond price.
(3) I plan to publish a book of those Basil Lee Stories after the novel. Perhaps one or two more serious ones to be published in the Mercury or with Scribners if you’d want them, combined with the total of about six in the Post Series, would make a nice light novel, almost, to follow my novel in the season immediately after, so as not to seem in the direct line of my so-called “work”. It would run to perhaps 50 or 60 thousand words.
(4) Do let me know any plans of Ernest Ring Tom (reviews poor, I notice) john Biggs
(5) Did you like Bishops story? I thought it was grand.
(6) Home Sept 15th I think. Best to Louise
(7) About Cape—won’t you arrange it for me + take the 10% commission? That is if Im not committed morally to Chatto + Windus who did, so to speak, pick me up out of the English gutter. I’d rather be with Cape. Please decide + act accordingly if you will. If you don’t I’ll just ask Reynolds. As you like. Let me know
Ever yr Devoted + Grateful Friend
Scott
TO: Maxwell Perkins
October/November 1928
ALS, 1 p. Princeton University
“Ellerslie/’ Edgemoor, Delaware
Dear Max:
Am going to send you two chapters a month of the final version of book beginning next week + ending in Feb.1 Strictly confidential. Don’t tell Reynolds! I think this will help me get it straight in my own mind—I’ve been alone with it too long.
I think Stearns will be delighted + hereby accept for him.2 Send me a check made out to him—he hasn’t had that much money since I gave him $50 in ’25—the poor bastard. If you leave out his name leave out mine too—or as you like.
Ever Yrs
Scott
Sending chapters Tues or Wed or Thurs.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
Edgemoor
Nov. ’28
Dear Max:
It seems fine to be sending you something again, even though its only the first fourth of the book (2 chapters, 18,000 words). Now comes another short story, then I’ll patch up Chaps. 3 + 4 the same way, and send them, I hope, about the 1st of December.
Chap I. here is good.
Chap II. has caused me more trouble than anything in the book. You’ll realize this when I tell you it was once 27,000 words long! It started its career as Chap I. I am far from satisfied with it even now, but won’t go into its obvious faults. I would appreciate it if you jotted down any critisisms—and saved them until I’ve sent you the whole book, because I want to feel that each part is finished and not worry about it any longer, even though I may change it enormously at the very last minute. All I want to know now is if, in general, you like it + this will have to wait, I suppose, until you’ve seen the next batch which finishes the first half. (My God its good to see those chapters lying in an envelope!
I think I have found you a new prospect of really extraordinary talent in a Carl Van Vechten way. I have his first novel at hand—unfortunately its about Lesbians. More of this later.
I think Bunny’s title1 is wonderful!
Remember novel is confidential, even to Ernest.
Always Yrs.
Scott
TO: Adelaide Neall2
ALS, 1 p. Historical Society of Pennsylvania
“Ellerslie” stationery. Edgemoor, Delaware
Dec 12th 1928
Dear Miss Neale:
Many thanks for the really beautiful medal. I shall use it, a little irreverendly, to weigh down many future manuscripts.
Your asking me for a picture reminds me that with my new story I will have appeared thirty times in the Post—beginning just nine years ago. This averages one story every three or four months—and a little over sixty-three thousand dollars (which I am sending back in the next mail as I don’t think they were really worth it, and anyhow the medal is more than enough.)
And herewith the photo.
Sincerely
F Scott Fitzgerald
TO: Ernest Hemingway
December 28, 1928
ALS, 2 pp. John F. Kennedy Library
Dear Ernest:
I’m terribly sorry about your trouble.3 I guess losing parents is just one of the things that happens to one in the thirties—every time I see my father now I think its the last time.
Thank Pauline for the really beautiful Xmas card. It was great to have you both here, even when I was intermittently unconscious.
I send you what may be news, and what a nice precedent for beating up Mencken.4 Saw the Murphys for an hour in New York. We’re sailing March 1st + I hope to have the novel here. (Confidential about sailing though until I’m sure—won’t go unless novel’s finished.) Ring thought you were fine—he was uncharacteristicly entheusiastic.
I’m bored + somewhat depressed tonight so I won’t continue. Oh, yes—I met old H. Stearns just before leaving Paris and feeling drunk and Christlike suggested a title to him: “Why I go on being poor in Paris”, told him to write it as an informal letter to me and I’d sell it. In a burst of energy he did + I sent it to Max who wrote a check for $100.00 for it. Now Harold writes me that $100 isn’t very much (as a matter of fact, it isn’t much of a letter either) and exhibits such general dissatisfaction that I think he thinks I held out on him. You’ve got to be careful who you do favors for—within a year you’ll probably hear a story that what started him on his downward path was my conscienceless theft of his royaties.
Spengler’s second volume1 is marvellous. Nothing else is any good—when will you save me from the risk of memorizing your works from over-reading them by finishing another? Remember, Proust is dead—to the great envy of
Your Crony and Gossip
Scott
Edgemoor
Delaware
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. March 1, 1929
ALS, 3 pp. Princeton University
“Ellerslie,” Edgemoor, Delaware
Dear Max: I am sneaking away like a thief without leaving the chapters—there is a weeks work to straighten them out + in the confusion of influenza + leaving, I havn’t been able to do it. I’ll do it on the boat + send it from Genoa. A thousand thanks for your patience—just trust me a few months longer, Max—its been a discouraging time for me too but I will never forget your kindness and the fact that you’ve never reproached me.
I’m delighted about Ernest’s book—I bow to your decision on the modern library without agreeing at all. $100 or $50 advance is better than 1/8 of $40 for a years royalty, + the Scribner collection sounds vague + arbitrary to me. But its a trifle + I’ll give them a new + much inferior story instead as I want to be represented with those men, i e Forster, Conrad, Mansfield ect.
Herewith an ms I promised to bring you—I think it needs cutting but it just might sell with a decent title + no forward. I don’t feel certain tho at all—
Will you watch for some stories from a young Holger Lundberg who has appeared in the Mercury; he is a man of some promise + I headed him your way.
I hate to leave without seeing you—and I hate to see you without the ability to put the finished ms in your hands. So for a few months good bye + my affection + gratitude always
Scott.
TO: Harold Ober
March/April 1929
ALS, 1 p. Lilly Library
Hotel Beau Rivage. Nice
(After Sun. c/o Guaranty)
Dear Harold:
We arrive in Paris April 1st, have no appartment yet so will be care of the bank. It will be fine to see you if you can get over. The Rough Crossing has been sent + I’ve almost finished another. I hope to God the novel will be done this summer.
$400. seems OK. for the sketch. My wife has too more nearly finished—both longer.1
No news—I’m happy to be back here + if you cross the channel will take pleasure in buying you the best dinner procurable in France + I’ve become somewhat of a connessieur.
Ever Yours
F Scott Fitzg
TO: John Peak Bishop
March/April 1929?
ALS, 8pp. Princeton University
Paris
c/o Guaranty Trust
Dear John:
My depression over the badness of the novel2 as novel had just about sunk me, when I began the novellette3—John, it’s like two different men writing. The novellette is one of the best war things I’ve ever read—right up with the very best of Crane and Bierce—intelligent, beautifully organized + written—oh, it moved me and delighted me—the Charlestown country, the night in town, the old lady—but most of all, the position I was in at 4 this afternoon when I was in agony about the novel, the really fine dramatic handling of the old-lady-and-silver episode + the butchery scene. The preparation for the latter was adroit and delicate and just enough.
Now, to be practical—Scribners Magazine will, I’m sure, publish the novellette, if you wish, + pay you from $250–$400 therefore This price is a guess but probably accurate, I’d be glad to act as your amateur agent in the case. It is almost impossible without a big popular name to sell a two-part story to any higher priced magazine than that, as I know from my experience with Diamond Big as Ritz, Rich Boy ect. Advise me as to whether I may go ahead—of course authority confined only to American serial rights.
The novel is just something you’ve learned from + profited by. It has occasional spurts—like the conversations frequently of Brakespeare, but it is terribly tepid—I refrain—rather I don’t refrain but here set down certain facts which you are undoubtedly quite as aware of as I am
Pps 1–28. Elaborate preparation. Baby born without a scene—. Only announcement. Monsignor feeble A Catholic Bishop does not rank above Monsignor—his ambition to be a bishop is as incomprehensible as the idea of a staff captain to have a company.
You have now all but lost the reader. He will not face the mass of detail 28 et sequitur. Italian theme strained—your ignorance of the catholic church facinates me. Did you ever meet Mrs. Winthrop Chanler? Madden good idea but observed thinly.
Your combination of leaning on a great thing for your color + simultaneously trying to patronize it—!
At end something happens—child cries—feeble—has no significance except the strained one of making the reader think—“Well, after all that climb it must mean more than I think it does!”
Pps 48. et sequitur
1st really fine page—my novel has same idea (shorter) about an English whore. However, when this 6th Who’s Who commences all interest finally vanishes. No life is that dull. Did you ever see those mid-western books of the eighties + nineties “Our pioneers”, or “Mid-western Military Men—a compilation”? Even lists of dates, with their suggestion, are more alive.
(I’m taking you for a beating, but do you remember your letter to me about Gatsby. I suffered but I got something—like I did out of your friendly tutelage in English poetry.
You ought never to use an unfamiliar word unless you’ve had to search for it to express a delicate shade—where in effect you have recreated it. This is a damn good prose rule I think. (c.f. “andrognous” ect
exceptions:
need to avoid repetition
need of rythm, ect.
&n
bsp; ect
P. 62 Story interest again begins
p. 71 Gone again. Reader’s effort like writers was too much.
P 79 ect. (Incidently in this novel you have suggestion that Gettysburg was fought before Chancellorsville that retreat from Gettysburg + from Antietam was in same campaign that Colonels were often locally elected in Southern armies—which contrasts sharply with your profound knowledge of The Civil War in story.
A big person can make a much bigger mess than a little person and your impressive stature converted a lot of pottery into pebbles during the three years or so you were in the works. Luckily the pottery was never very dear to you. Novels are not written, or at least begun, with the idea of making an ultimate philosphical system—you tried to attone for your lack of confidence by a lack of humility before the form.
The main thing is: no one in our language possibly accepting Wilder has your talent for “the world”, your culture, + accuteness of social critisism as implied in the story, there the approach (2nd + 3d person ect.) is considered, full scope for your special talents (descriptive power, sense of “le pays”, ramifications of your special virtues such as loyalty, concealment of the sensuality, that is your bête noir to such an extent that you can no longer see it black, like me my drunkeness.
Anyhow it’s (the story) marvellous. Don’t be mad at this letter. I have the horrors tonight + perhaps am taking it out on you. Write me when I could see you here in Paris in the afternoon between 2.30— + 6.30 + talk— + name a day and a cafe at your convenience—I have no dates save on Sunday so any day will suit me. Meanwhile I’ll make one more stab at your novel to see if I can think of any way by a miracle of cutting it could be made presentable. But I fear there’s neither honor nor money in it for you
Your Old + Always
Affectionate Friend
Scott
Excuse Christ-like tone of letter. Began tippling at page 2 and am now positively holy (like Dostioeveffskis non-stinking monk)
TO: Ernest Hemingway1
A Life in Letters Page 18