Excuse that outburst, Max. Please write, answering all questions. Tell Louis I liked her story and hope she’s better. Things go all right with me now. What news of Ernest? And his book?
Ever your friend,
Scott
Hotel Rennert
Baltimore,
Maryland
circa May 14, 1932
Dear Max:
Here is Zelda’s novel. It is a good novel now, perhaps a very good novel - I am too close to tell. It has the faults and virtues of a first novel. It is more the expression of a powerful personality, like Look Homeward, Angel, than the work of a finished artist like Ernest Hemingway. It should interest the many thousands interested in dancing. It is about something and absolutely new, and should sell.
Now, about its reception. If you refuse it, which I don’t think you will, all communication should come through me. If you accept it write her directly and I withdraw all restraints on whatever meed of praise you may see fit to give. The strain of writing it was bad for her but it had to be written - she needed relaxation afterwards and I was afraid that praise might encourage the incipient egomania the doctors noticed, but she has taken such a sane common-sense view lately - (At first she refused to revise - then she revised completely, added on her own suggestion and has changed what was a rather flashy and self-justifying ‘true confessions’ that wasn’t worthy of her into an honest piece of work. She can do more with the galleys but I can’t ask her to do more now.) - But now praise will do her good, within reason. But she mustn’t write anything more on the personal side for six months or so until she is stronger.
Now a second thing, more important than you think. You haven’t been in the publishing business over twenty years without noticing the streaks of smallness in very large personalities. Ernest told me once he would ‘never publish a book in the same season with me,’ meaning it would lead to ill-feeling. I advise you, if he is in New York (and always granting you like Zelda’s book), do not praise it, or even talk about it to him! The finer the thing he has written, the more he’ll expect your entire allegiance to it as this is one of the few pleasures, rich and full and new, he’ll get out of it. I know this, and I think you do too and probably there’s no use warning you. There is no possible conflict between the books but there has always been a subtle struggle between Ernest and Zelda, and any apposition might have curiously grave consequences - curious, that is, to un-jealous men like you and me.
One thing more. Please, in your letter to Zelda (if of acceptance) do not mention contracts or terms. I will take it up immediately on hearing from you.
Thanks about the Modern Library. I don’t know exactly what I shall do. Five years have rolled away from me and I can’t decide exactly who I am, if anyone....
Ever your friend,
Scott
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Tow son, Maryland
January 19, 1933
Dear Max:
I was in New York for three days last week on a terrible bat. I was about to call you up when I completely collapsed and laid in bed for twenty-four hours groaning. Without a doubt the boy is getting too old for such tricks. Ernest told me he concealed from you the fact that I was in such rotten shape. I send you this, less to write you a Rousseau’s Confession than to let you know why I came to town without calling you, thus violating a custom of many years’ standing.
Thanks for the books that you have had sent to me from time to time. They comprise most of the reading I do because like everybody else I gradually cut down on expenses. When you have a line on the sale of Zelda’s book let us know.
Found New York in a high state of neurosis, as does everybody else, and met no one who didn’t convey the fact to me: it possibly proves that the neurosis is in me. All goes serenely down here. Am going on the water-wagon from the first of February to the first of April but don’t tell Ernest because he has long convinced himself that I am an incurable alcoholic due to the fact that we almost always meet on parties. I am his alcoholic just like Ring is mine and do not want to disillusion him, the even Post stories must be done in a state of sobriety. I thought he seemed in good shape, Bunny less so, rather gloomy. A decision to adopt Communism definitely, no matter how good for the soul, must of necessity be a saddening process for anyone who has ever tasted the intellectual pleasures of the world we live in.
For God’s sake can’t you lighten that pall of gloom which has settled over Scribner’s
Magazine - Erskine Caldwell’s imitations of Morley Callaghan’s imitations of Ernest, and Stuart Chase’s imitations of Earl Browder’s imitating Lenin? Maybe Ring would lighten your volume with a monthly article. I see he has perked up a little in The New Yorker.
All goes acceptably in Maryland, at least from the window of my study, with distant gun flashes on the horizon if you walk far out of the door.
Ever your old friend,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson, Maryland
September 25, 1933
Dear Max:
The novel has gone ahead faster than I thought. There was a little setback when I went to the hospital for four days but since then things have gone ahead of my schedule which, you will remember, promised you the whole manuscript for reading November 1, with the first one-fourth ready to shoot into the magazine (in case you can use it) and the other three-fourths to undergo further revision. I now figure that this can be achieved by about the 25th of October. I will appear in person, carrying the manuscript and wearing a spiked helmet.
There are several points and I wish you would answer them categorically.
1. Did you mean that you could get the first fourth of the story into the copy of the magazine appearing late in December and therefore that the book could appear early in April? I gathered that on the phone but want to be sure. I don’t know what the ocean travel statistics promise for the spring but it seems to me that a May publication would be too late if there was a great exodus and I should miss being a proper gift book for it. The story, as you know, is laid entirely in Europe -I wish I could have gotten as far as China but Europe was the best I could do, Max (to get into Ernest’s rhythm).
2.1 would not want a magazine proof of the first part, though of course I would expect your own proofreaders to check up on blatant errors, but would want to talk over with you any small changes that would have to be made for magazine publication - in any case to make them myself.
3. Will publication with you absolutely preclude that the book will be chosen by the Literary Guild or the Book-of-the-Month? Whatever the answer, the serial will serve the purpose of bringing my book to the memory and attention of my old public and of getting straight financially with you. On the other hand, it is to both our advantages to capitalize if possible such facts as that the editors of those book leagues might take a fancy to such a curious idea that the author, Fitzgerald, actually wrote a book after all these years (this is all said with the reservation that the book is good). Please answer this as it is of importance to me to know whether I must expect my big returns from serial and possibly theatrical and picture rights or whether I have as good a chance at a book sale, launched by one of those organizations, as any other best seller.
Ober is advancing me the money to go through with it (it will probably not need more than $2000 though he has promised to go as far as $4000) and in return I am giving him 10% of the serial rights. I plan to raise the money to repay him (if I have not already paid him by Post stories) by asking a further advance on the book royalties or on my next book which might be an omnibus collection of short stories or those two long serial stories about young people that I published some time ago in the Post as the Basil stories and the Josephine stories - this to be published in the fall.
You are the only person who knows how near the novel is to being finished. PIease don’t say a word to anyone.
4. — How will you give a month’s advance notice of the story - slip a band on the jacket of the December issue? I want
to talk to you about advertising when I see you in late October so please don’t put even the publicity man at any work yet. As to the photographs I have a snapshot negative of the three of us with a surfboard, which enlarges to a nice 6 x 10 glossy suitable for rotogravures, and also have a fine double profile of Zelda and me in regular cabinet photograph size and have just gotten figures from the photographer. He wants $18.00 for twelve, $24.00 for twenty-four and $35.00 for fifty and says he does not sell the plates, though I imagine he could be prevailed upon if we give him a ‘take it or leave it’ offer. How many would you need? These two photographs are modem. I don’t want any of the old ones sent out and I don’t want any horrors to be dug up out of newspaper morgues.
Tell me how many you would need to cover all the press? Would it be cheaper if I sat when I came up there - the trouble is that in only one out of any three pictures is my pan of any interest.
5. — My plan, and I think it is very important, is to prevail upon the Modern Library, even with a subsidy, to bring out Gatsby a few weeks after the book publication of this novel. Please don’t say that anybody would possibly have the psychology of saying to themselves ‘one of his is in the Modern Library, therefore I will not buy another,’ or that the two books could be confused. The people who buy the Modern Library are not at all the people who buy the new books. Gatsby - in its present form, not actually available in sight to book buyers - will only get a scattering sale as a result of the success of this book. I feel that every time your business department has taken a short-sighted view of our community of interest in this matter, which is my reputation, there has been no profit on your part and something less than that on mine. As, for example, a novel of Ernest’s in the Modern Library and no novel of mine, a good short story of Ernest’s in their collection of the Great Modern Short Stories and a purely commercial story of mine. I want to do this almost as much as I want to publish this novel and will cooperate to the extent of sharing the cost.
There will be other points when I see you in October, but I will be greatly reassured to have some sort of idea about these points so that I can make my plans accordingly. I will let you know two or three days in advance when you may expect me.
One last point: unlike Ernest I am perfectly agreeable to making any necessary cuts for serial publication but naturally insist that I shall do them myself.
You can imagine the pride with which I will enter your office a month from now. Please do not have a band as I do not care for music.
Ever yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson,Maryland
September 29, 1933
Dear Max:
Since talking to you and getting your letter another angle has come up. Ober tells me that Burton of Cosmopolitan is very interested in the novel and if he took it would, in Ober’s opinion, pay between $30,000 and $40,000 for it. Now against that there are the following factors:
1. The fact that though Burton professes great lust for my work the one case in which I wrote a story specifically for him, that movie story that you turned down and that Mencken published, he showed that he really can’t put his taste into action; in that case the Hearst policy man smeared it 2. — The tremendous pleasure I would get from appearing in Scribner’s.
3. — The spring publication.
4. — My old standby, the Post, would not be too pleased to have my work running serially all spring and summer in the Cosmopolitan.
On the other hand, the reasons why it must be considered are between thirty and forty thousand, and all of them backed by the credit of the U.S. Treasury. It is a purely hypothetical sum I admit and certainly no serial is worth It, yet if Willie Hearst is still pouring gold back into the desert in the manner of 1929 would I be stupid not to take some or would I be stupid not to take some? My own opinion is that if the thing is offered to Burton, he will read it, be enthusiastic, and immediately an Obstacle will appear. On the other hand, should I even offer it to them? Should I give him a copy on the same day I give you a copy asking an answer from him within three days? Would the fact that he refused it diminish your interest in the book or influence it? Or, even, considering my relations with you would it be a dirty trick to show it to him at all? What worries me is the possibility of being condemned to go back to The Saturday Evening Post grind at the exact moment when the book is finished. I suppose I could and probably will but I will need a damn good month’s rest outdoors or traveling before I can even do that.
Can you give me any estimate as to how much I could expect from you as to payment for the serial and how much of that will be in actual cash? It seems terrible to ask you this when it is not even decided yet whether or not you want it; but what I want to do is to see if I can not offer it at all to Burton. I wish to God I had never talked to Harold about it and got these upsetting commercial ideas in my head.
I am taking care of the picture matter. I certainly would like to be on your cover and stare down Greta Garbo on the news-stands. I figure now that it should reach you, at the latest, on the 25th, though I am trying for the 23rd.
Ring’s death was a terrible blow. Have written a short appreciation of him for The New Republic.
Please answer.
Ever yours,
Scott
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson, Maryland
October 7, 1933
Dear Max:
I had already thought of your point and talked to John Lardner about it. My idea was that Gilbert Seldes could do it and was the ideal man for the job; also my idea was that the articles that Ring wrote over that series of time could be made into a sort of Ring’s history of the world. Whoever edits it should make it into a unit as far as possible. (Naturally I am not referring to the achieved facts of the stories.) I think that a big book of nonsense could be got up based on all the writings, apart from fiction, that Ring did, from his early newspaper days until the present. I have already taken it up with Seldes and John Lardner (the latter of whom is still under the spell of his father’s obsequies and will probably not get around to any action for a week or so) that it must be edited. When I say edited, I mean edited; if you want to have a volume of Ring’s that would properly represent him you should commission such a man as Gilbert to go through everything which is not fiction and make a sort of story out of it. Pay him high, 35 to 45% of the total royalties, and publish the book as a standard book of nonsense; no thin little volume as the Story of a Wonder- man (though what meat was in that should be used) but a real monument of American nonsense.
Any collection of Benchley, Corey Ford or Thurber would be merely a selection of incidents, in my opinion, while this collection of Ring’s could be made the story of a whole period, not up to the present, for toward the end he was a sick man and did not record very well; but during the period in which Ring functioned rationally he got everything that was going and that might be of interest to many people.
Why not get in touch with Gilbert and talk it over, showing him this letter, or else telling him the equivalent of the opinions here expressed? I know what I could do with the material and have faith in the hypothetical result, but it is simply impossible for me to undertake such work under present circumstances. This publication, mind you, would have to be utterly unlike the hasty compilations of Ring’s nonsense that you have put out - it would have to be a new dealing with it; it would take an intelligent ap- preciator’s whole time for a month to put it out in any other form than that would do harm to his reputation. My idea is that this nonsense cannot be spotted like Lear’s nonsense but must be organized like Lewis Carroll’s nonsense. All of it that is still funny (except the parts that were merely timely) should be included, but it must be made consecutive - well, consult with Gilbert and see if he has anything to suggest; this is the best I can offer.
Ever yours,
Scott
La Paix, Rodgers’ Forge Towson,Maryland
October 19,1933
Dear Max:
All goes w
ell here. The first two chapters are in shape and am starting the third one this afternoon. So the first section comprising about 26,000 words will be mailed to you Friday night or Saturday morning.
Naturally I was delighted by your gesture of coming up two thousand. I hope to God results will show in the circulation of the magazine and I have an idea they will. Negotiations with Cosmopolitan were of course stopped and Ober is sure that getting the release from Liberty is merely a matter of form which he is attending to. I think I will need the money a little quicker than by the month, say $1000 on delivery of the first section and then the other J3000 every fortnight after that. This may not be necessary but the first $2000 will. As you know, I now owe Ober two or three thousand and he should be reimbursed so he can advance me more to carry me through the second section and a Post story. Naturally, payments on the serial should be made to him.
I am saying this now and will remind you later. My idea is that the book form of the novel should be set up from the corrected proof of the serial - in that I will re-insert the excisions which I am making for the serial.
If you have any way of getting French or Swiss railroad posters it would be well for you to try to. Now as to the blurbs: I think there should not be too many; I am sending you nine.....
‘The Great Gatsby is undoubtedly a work of art.’
The London Times
As to T. S. Eliot: What he said was in a letter to me - that he’d read it several times, it had interested and excited him more than any novel he had seen, either English or American, for a number of years, and he also said that it seemed to him that it was the first step forward in the American novel since Henry fames.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 452