Flappers and Philosophers

Flappers and Philosophers

The cover of the 1920 first edition
Author	F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cover artist	W. E. Hill
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Short stories
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)

Flappers and Philosophers is a collection of eight works of short fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Each of the stories had originally appeared, independently, in either the Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's Magazine, or The Smart Set. ^{[1] [2]}

The volume includes “The Ice Palace,” regarded as one of Fitzgerald’s finest short works. ^[3]

Stories

The original periodical publication and date are indicated. ^{[4] [5]}

• "The Offshore Pirate" ( Saturday Evening Post , May 1, 1920) ^[6]
• "The Ice Palace"(Saturday Evening Post, May 22, 1920)
• "Head and Shoulders" (Saturday Evening Post, February 19, 1920)
• "The Cut-Glass Bowl" ( Scribner’s Magazine , May 1920)
• "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" (Saturday Evening Post, May 1, 1920)
• "Benediction" ( The Smart Set , February 1920)
• "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong" (The Smart Set, February 1920)
• "The Four Fists" (Scribner’s Magazine, June 1920)

Background

The stories published in Nassau Literary Review while Fitzgerald was attending Princeton University, as well as those that comprise Flappers and Philosophers, may be placed among his “apprenticeship fiction.” ^{[7] [8]}

In November 1919, Fitzgerald engaged Harold Ober as his literary agent. By early 1920 Ober had negotiated the sale of six of Fitzgerald’s stories to the popular literary journal Saturday Evening Post , one of several “high-paying mass-circulation slick-paper magazines.” Fitzgerald was paid $400 for each story. ^{[9] [10]} Fitzgerald’s short fiction became identified with the Post in the following years, to whom he would sell sixty-five of his stories—“40 percent of his output.” ^[11]

Literary critic and biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli notes that “during his lifetime, Fitzgerald was far better known and more widely read as a short story writer than as a novelist.” ^[12]

Reception

The New York Times in its September 26, 1920 edition evaluated the collection in light of Fitzgerald’s recently published first novel This Side of Paradise (1920): ”[H]is eight short stories range the gamut of style and mood with a brilliance, a jeu perle [“pearly tone”], so to speak, which is not to be found in the novel.” The reviewer compares the works favorably to the “ Russian school” and to the American author O. Henry, and closes by commending “Mr. Fitzgerald's talent and genius.” ^[13]

Theme

Literary critic and biographer John Kuehl reports that the book reflects the social types identified in the collection’s title:

Diverse characters and classes manifest themselves, yet Fitzgerald’s fundamentally bourgeois world features the ubiquitous homme manqué and the femme fatale , for courtship and marriage comprise the all-important sexual element. ^[14]

Footnotes

1. Bryer, 2000 p. 1069
2. Elbe, 1963 p. 54: The collection was published on September 10, 1920
3. Eble, 1963 p. 56: “...as good a story as Fitzgerald ever wrote…clearly his best” of the stories in the collection.
4. Kuehl, 1991 p. 184: Selected Bibliography
5. Bryer, 2000 p. 1069: Notes on the Texts.
6. Bruccoli, 1998 p. 89: Bruccoli reports the date as May 29, 1920 in epigraph.
7. Kuehl, 1991 p. 25: The stories, written between 1915 and 1921 “...like the author’s prep-school efforts, may be said to comprise his apprenticeship fiction.”
8. Bryer, 2000 p. 1059-1060: Chronology
9. Bruccoli, 1998 p. 15
10. Bryer, 2000 p. 1061: Chronology: Fitzgerald paid “$400 for each of them.”
11. Bruccoli, 1998 p. 15
12. Bruccoli, 1998 p. 15
13. "Flappers". The New York Times. September 26, 1920.
14. Kuehl, 1991 p. 32 And p. 26: “...a book focused on its two title-figure types…”

Sources

• Bruccoli, Matthew J.. 1998. Preface to The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald Simon & Schuster, Scribner Classics edition. Matthew J. Bruccoli, editor. ISBN   0-684-84250-5
• Bryer, Jackson R. 2000: Chronology and Notes in F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. pp. 1057-1071. Library of America , New York. ISBN   1-883011-84-1
• Eble, Kenneth E. 1963. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Twayne Publishers , Boston, Massachusetts. Library of Congress Card Number: 63-10953
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 2000. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. Library of America , New York. ISBN   1-883011-84-1
• Kuehl, John. 1991. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. G. K. Hall & Co., Gordon Weaver, editor. ISBN   0-8057-8332-6

External links

• Works related to Flappers and Philosophers at Wikisource
• Flappers and Philosophers at Project Gutenberg
• Flappers and Philosophers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921 (reprint). Scanned book from Internet Archive.
• Flappers and Philosophers public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• "Flappers". The New York Times. September 26, 1920. Retrieved 2017-11-01.