"Myra Meets His Family" | |
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Short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | The Saturday Evening Post |
Publication date | March 20, 1920 |
"Myra Meets His Family" is a work of short fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald first appearing in The Saturday Evening Post on March 20, 1920. The story was collected in The Price Was High: Fifty Uncollected Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1979) by Harcourt, Brace & Company [1] [2] "Myra Meets His Family" was among the first stories accepted by The Saturday Evening Post for publication. [3] Fitzgerald would sell the bulk of his short fiction to the Post during the next 20 years, until his death n 1940. [4]
"Myra Meets His Family" was acquired by Fox Film studios, and adapted to film as The Husband Hunter (1920) starring Eileen Percy and Emory Johnson [5] [6]
"Myra Meets His Family" is presented from third-person omniscient point-of-view, with Myra as the focal character.
The story opens with a profile of a female social type, a young, upper-middle-class girl who socializes at Ivy League universities. Myra Harper briefly attends Smith College for a semester, enjoys romances with a number of young army officers during The Great War, two who die in training or combat. Self-absorbed and dedicated to casually falling in love, she reaches the age of 24 feeling jaded. She has gained the reputation of a flirt and an infamous fortune hunter among some suitors. Her former college roommate, now a wife, urges her to select an eligible man and marry. Myra is confident she can get any male she chooses.
Myra sets her sights on Knowleton Whitney, an attractive boy whose family is wealthy; he quickly succumbs to her charms and falls in love. A diamond solitaire establishes their engagement and Myra is invited to appear at the Whitney estate to meet his family. Unbeknownst to Myra, Knowleton's parents—his mother in particular—are determined to see their male heir and only child marry into British royalty and perhaps procure a noble title for the family. Informed that they have already arranged his marriage, the young swain is too diffident to resist the family matriarch. Knowleton is simultaneously informed by an acquaintance that Myra is a notorious gold-digger.
Too diffident to break off the engagement forthrightly, he seeks a means of maneuvering Myra into breaking off the engagement herself. He enlists the support of two unscrupulous men: a well-known actor, Warren Appleton, and a side-show performer named Kelly. For a price, an elaborate scheme is hatched. They rent a manor house, hire theatrical performers to appear as chauffeurs, butlers and maids and well-dressed dinner guests, creating a phony version of the Whitney estate. Appleton presents himself to Myra as Knowleton's father: he is clearly a lunatic. Kelly, cross-dressing as the mother, is no less bizarre: her boudoir is filled with two dozen barking poodles. Knowleton fully participates in the subterfuge.
Myra is dismayed by the odd behavior of the denizens of the strange household. She maintains her composure despite a number of humiliations. Finally, she is ushered into the Whitney portrait gallery, where she views a picture of Knowleton's grandmother: she is Chinese. With this, Myra determines to flee the next morning.
That night, Myra overhears Knowleton, Appleton and Kelly discussing the operation: Knowlton is clearly distressed at the effect the fraud is having on Myra, but his cohorts assure him he is saving his family from disgrace. Myra encounters Knowleton in the garden early next morning: he is a pathetic wreck. Confessing every false detail, he pleads for her forgiveness and pledges his devotion to her. Myra considers, then proposes that they marry immediately, and arrangements are made. Knowleton is ecstatic. She quickly arranges a simple ceremony at the residence of Presbyterian minister, Reverend Walter Gregory, her cousin, and they quickly board a train for the Whitney estate Chicago.
Just before departure, she tells Knowleton that she has left her traveling bag with "Cousin Walter" and must make a phone call to have it sent forward. Moments later she rendezvous with the "Reverend" Walter: the marriage was a hoax, entirely unbinding, arranged by Myra as sweet revenge against Knowleton. She absconds triumphantly with her wedding ring as a souvenir, determined never to see him again.
Though Fitzgerald had doubts as to its literary value, his agent Harold Ober quickly procured $400 for the piece from The Saturday Evening Post. [7] According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald may have compared "Myra Meets His Family" unfavorably to his story "The Ice Palace," considered one of his finest works of short fiction. The stories were written during the same month. Bruccoli adds that "Myra is a readily recognizable Fitzgerald heroine who appears under a dozen other names in later stories." [8]
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist, painter, and socialite. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, to a wealthy Southern family, she became locally famous for her beauty and high spirits. In 1920, she married writer F. Scott Fitzgerald after the popular success of his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. The novel catapulted the young couple into the public eye, and she became known in the national press as the first American flapper. Because of their wild antics and incessant partying, she and her husband became regarded in the newspapers as the enfants terribles of the Jazz Age. Alleged infidelity and bitter recriminations soon undermined their marriage. After Zelda traveled abroad to Europe, her mental health deteriorated, and she had suicidal and homicidal tendencies, which required psychiatric care. Her doctors diagnosed her with schizophrenia, although later posthumous diagnoses posit bipolar disorder.
Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was an American professor of English at the University of South Carolina. He was an expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald; his biography of Fitzgerald, published in 1981, was considered the standard biography for decades. He also wrote about other writers, including Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and John O'Hara, and was editor of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in March 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of unfulfilling romances with flappers. The novel explores themes of love warped by greed and social ambition. Fitzgerald, who took inspiration for the title from a line in Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti, spent years revising the novel before Scribner's accepted it for publication.
Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients. The story mirrors events in the lives of the author and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald as Dick starts his descent into alcoholism and Nicole struggles with mental illness.
The Beautiful and Damned is a 1922 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" while excessively partying at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age. As Fitzgerald's second novel, the work focuses upon the swinish behavior and glittering excesses of the American social elite in the heyday of New York's café society.
Flappers and Philosophers is a collection of eight short stories by American writer 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.
"The Cut-Glass Bowl" is a short story by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in the May 1920 issue of Scribner's Magazine, and included later that year in his first short story collection Flappers and Philosophers. The story follows the lives of a married couple, Evylyn and Harold Piper, through various difficult or tragic events that involve a cut glass bowl they received as a wedding gift. In a copy of Flappers and Philosophers which he gave to literary critic H. L. Mencken, Fitzgerald wrote that he deemed the story to be "worth reading" in contrast to others in the volume which he dismissed as either "amusing" or "trash."
"Head and Shoulders" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was his first story to be published in the Saturday Evening Post, with the help of Fitzgerald's agent, Harold Ober. The story appeared in the February 21, 1920 issue and was illustrated by Charles D. Mitchell. It later appeared in his short story collection Flappers and Philosophers.
"Winter Dreams" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in Metropolitan magazine in December 1922 and later collected in All the Sad Young Men in 1926. The plot concerns the attempts by a young man to win the affections of an upper-class woman. The story, frequently anthologized, is regarded as one of Fitzgerald's finest works "for poignantly portraying the loss of youthful illusions."
"The Ice Palace" is a modernist short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published in The Saturday Evening Post on May 22, 1920. It is one of eight short stories originally published in Fitzgerald's first collection, Flappers and Philosophers, and is also included in the collection Babylon Revisited and Other Stories.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) is a collection of 11 short stories by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Divided into three separate parts, it includes one of his better-known short stories, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". All of the stories had first appeared, independently, in either Metropolitan Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Smart Set, Collier's, the Chicago Sunday Tribune, or Vanity Fair.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Ginevra King Pirie was an American socialite and heiress. As one of the self-proclaimed "Big Four" debutantes of Chicago during World War I, King inspired many characters in the novels and short stories of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. A 16-year-old King met an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at a sledding party in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and they shared a passionate romance from 1915 to 1917.
All the Sad Young Men is a collection of short fiction by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The stories originally appeared independently in popular literary journals and were first collected in February 1926 by Charles Scribner's Sons.
"The Offshore Pirate" is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1920. It is one of eight short stories included in Fitzgerald's first published collection, Flappers and Philosophers. The story was first published in the May 29, 1920 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and illustrated by Leslie L. Benson.
Taps at Reveille is a collection of 18 short stories by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1935. It was the fourth and final volume of previously uncollected short stories Fitzgerald published in his lifetime. The volume appeared a year after his novel Tender is the Night was published. The collection includes several stories featuring autobiographical creations derived from Fitzgerald's youth, namely Basil Duke Lee and Josephine Perry.
The Bridal Party is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and featured in the Saturday Evening Post on August 9, 1930. The story is based on Ludlow Fowler's brother, Powell Fowler, May 1930 Paris wedding. It is Fitzgerald's first story dealing with the stock market crash and celebrates the end of the period when wealthy Americans colonized Paris.
"First Blood" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in the April 5, 1930 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, illustrated by Harry Russell Ballinger. It was later included in his 1935 short story collection Taps at Reveille.
The Price Was High: Fifty Uncollected Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a volume of short fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald published by Harcourt Brace & Company in 1979.
“The Lees of Happiness” is a work of short fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald first appearing in The Chicago Tribune, December 12, 1920. The story was first collected in Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.