Twice during the last decade of his life, in 1934 and 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed a collection of his personal essays to Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner's Sons. Perkins was unenthusiastic on both occasions, and Fitzgerald died in 1940 without having put his best essays between hard covers. Fortunately Fitzgerald left behind a table of contents, and with this list as a guide it has been possible to publish here the collection that he envisioned, under the title My Lost City. This volume also includes several of Fitzgerald's autobiographical writings. My Lost City, like the other volumes in the Cambridge Edition, provides accurate texts based on Fitzgerald's surviving manuscripts and typescripts. Words and passages cut by magazine editors have been restored to several of the essays. A textual apparatus has been included, along with full explanatory notes identifying people, places, books, historical events, and other details.
Fitzgerald: My Lost City : Personal Essays, 1920-1940
Description
Table of Contents
Introduction; Part I. Fitzgerald's Selections, 1936: 1. Who's Who - and Why (1920); 2. Princeton (1927); 3. What I Think and Feel at 25 (1922); 4. How to Live on $36,000 a Year (1924); 5. How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year (1924); 6. Imagination - and a Few Mothers (1923); 7. 'Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!' (1924); 8. How to Waste Material (1926); 9. One Hundred False Starts (1933); 10. Ring (1933); 11. A Short Autobiography (1929); 12. Girls Believe in Girls (1930); 13. My Lost City (1935/1940); 14. 'Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number' (1934); 15. Echoes of the Jazz Age (1931); 16. The Crack-Up (1936); 17. Pasting It Together (1936); 18. Handle with Care (1936); Part II. Additional Essays, 1936–1940: 19. Auction - Model 1934 (1934); 20. Sleeping and Waking (1934); 21. Author's House (1936); 22. Afternoon of an Author (1936); 23. An Author's Mother (1936); 24. Early Success (1937); 25. My Generation (1939); Record of Variants; Explanatory notes; Illustrations; Appendix 1. 'Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number -'; Appendix 2. Publication and Earnings.
Author Description
James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University.