F. Scott Fitzgerald

James L. W. West III

A self-portrait of a great writer. A Short Autobiography charts Fitzgerald's progression from exuberant and cocky with "What I think and Feel at 25", to mature and reflective with "One Hundred False Starts" and "The Death of My Father." Compiled and edited by Professor James West, this revealing collection of personal essays and articles reveals the beloved author in his own words.

A Short Autobiography

In 1992 the University of Pennsylvania Press published a new edition of Theodore Dreiser's second novel, Jennie Gerhardt. The original published text was altered significantly from the author's intentions: its sexual energy was short-circuited, its criticisms of organized religion were blunted, its language was smoothed and sentimentalized, and, most important, Jennie Gerhardt was reduced to a less thoughtful, less womanly character. The restored edition brings back the sexual charge, reinstates the social and religious criticism, and makes the language Dreiser's again. This volume brings together 19 fresh readings, together with an introduction, of the Pennsylvania edition by three generations of Dreiser critics. The volume includes general assessments, analysis of main characters, treatments of the autobiographical roots of the narrative, views of various traditions (realistic, sentimental, ethnic) on which Dreiser drew, and investigations of historical contexts that inform his story.

New Essays on the Restored Text

Dreiser's "Jennie Gerhardt"

"To write it took three months; to conceive it—three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life." So said F. Scott Fitzgerald regarding This Side of Paradise, the novel he began writing in November 1917 and published on March 26, 1920. This Side of Paradise launched Fitzgerald as the "Prophet of the Jazz Age" and the spokesman for his generation. It is still one of the major reasons for his fame today. The story of how Fitzgerald wrote and published the book is fascinating. In The Making of "This Side of Paradise", James West studies the inception, composition, publication, and textual history of the novel. He traces its growth from its earliest version, entitled "The Romantic Egotist," to its final published form. Based on preserved documentary evidence—fragments of "The Romantic Egotist," the manuscript of This Side of Paradise, surviving correspondence, and other papers—this volume blends the techniques of biographical, critical, and textual scholarship to tell the story of the making of the quintessential novel of the twenties.

James L. W. West III

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