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Escrito por el autor estadounidense F. Scott Fitzgerald y publicado por primera vez en la revista Collier's el 27 de mayo de 1922, fue publicado dentro del libro Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald se inspiró en un comentario de Mark Twain. Benjamin Button nace con una extraña enfermedad, que provocaba que naciera con 80 años y fuera rejuveneciendo con el paso de los años. Una afección que existe en la realidad bajo el nombre de progeria o síndrome de Hutchinson-Gilford.

The Great Gatsby is one of the most recognized texts by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, considered a classic of American literature, whose exquisite work maintains all its relevance and freshness. Gatsby, the gentleman who reigns over West Egg, the host of the restless nights, but also the winner marked by the tragic fate of an unintended loneliness, is the archetype of those twenties that began with Prohibition and ran through the gangsterism and organized political corruption. Protagonist of a decade that would culminate in the catastrophe of 1929, his image of splendor does nothing but announce an inevitable drama. The Great Gatsby has been made into films, with great success and popularity.

Zbirka „Kratak put kući“ sadrži sedam kratkih priča američkog klasika F. Scotta Fitzgeralda, prvi put objavljenih u hrvatskom prijevodu. Priče su izvorno izlazile u časopisima krajem dvadesetih i tijekom tridesetih godina prošlog stoljeća. Autor u njima iskušava neke motive i postupke kojima će se služiti u duljim djelima (primjerice u romanu „Blaga je noć“), no povezuje ih to što se u svakoj pojavljuje neki element fantastičnog. Iako je Fitzgerald, čuveni kroničar „doba jazza“, čitateljima poznat kao majstor realistične proze, u ovim se pričama otkriva njegova prigušena ali trajno prisutna sklonost fantastičnom: jednom je ono materijalizacija bezimenog nemira koji progoni njegove junake, jednom ludički izlet u improviziranu bajku, jednom maštarija o mentalnom svijetu jednoga psa. Završna priča „Hvala na vatri“, koju je časopis New Yorker 1936. odbio kao previše fantastičnu te objavio tek 2012., izgrađena na jezičnoj dosjetci, vješto balansira između ironije i mistike.

Step into the Roaring Twenties with'The Great Gatsby'by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This iconic novel immerses you in the glitz and glamour of the Jazz Age, where mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby hosts extravagant parties in pursuit of lost love, Daisy Buchanan. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the story unravels, revealing the dark underbelly of wealth and privilege. With lyrical prose, Fitzgerald explores the American Dream, love, and obsession. A timeless classic,'The Great Gatsby'is a vivid portrait of an era that still captivates readers today. Delve into the opulence and tragedy of the Gatsby era in this literary gem.ABOUT THE AUTHORFrancis Scott Fitzgerald, born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald on September 24, 1896, was a celebrated American author of the Jazz Age, known for his iconic novel'The Great Gatsby'. His life and work epitomize the spirit and excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he attended Princeton University, where he began to nurture his passion for writing. His debut novel,'This Side of Paradise,'published in 1920, brought him immediate success, making him a literary sensation. However, it was'The Great Gatsby', published in 1925, that solidified his reputation as one of America's greatest novelists. Set in the opulent world of Long Island's elite, the novel explores themes of wealth, love, and the American Dream. Today, it is considered one of the greatest American novels ever written. Fitzgerald's writing was characterized by its vivid portrayal of the era's excesses and its sharp social commentary. He and his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, became iconic figures of the Jazz Age, known for their extravagant lifestyle. Unfortunately, Fitzgerald's personal life was marred by struggles with alcoholism and financial difficulties. His later works, like'Tender Is the Night', also received critical acclaim but didn't achieve the same level of success as'The Great Gatsby.'Tragically, F. Scott Fitzgerald passed away on December 21, 1940, at the age of 44. While he didn't live to witness the full extent of his literary legacy, his works continue to be celebrated for their exploration of the American experience, making him a timeless figure in American literature.

Un retrato de los felices años veinte, de la llamada Jazz Age. Hermosos y malditos narra la historia de una pareja de recién casados, Anthony Patch, de Nueva York, y Gloria Gilbert, de Kansas City, punto de partida que escoge Francis Scott Fitzgerald para describir la decadencia de un matrimonio y de una sociedad hedonista donde la belleza y la fortuna son siempre demasiado fugaces. Muchos años después de su aparición, este clásico sigue siendo el más deslumbrante retrato de la alta sociedad estadounidense, de sus glorias y miserias; un retrato que trasciende su época y se erige en universal. «Fitzgerald era mejor escritor que nosotros dos juntos.» Carta de John O'Hara a John Steinbeck

«Era, en cierto modo, el hombre más rico de todos los tiempos, pero ¿le servía de algo?» John T. Unger es invitado a pasar el verano en la casa de su compañero de clase, Percy Washington. Durante el viaje, este le confiesa que su padre es el hombre más rico del mundo y le promete que una vez lleguen a su destino podrá disfrutar de lo inimaginable. Sin embargo, las promesas de su amigo y las ansias de lujo del protagonista pronto se verán teñidas por las implicaciones de una riqueza de esta magnitud. Este relato onírico, que fue rechazado por muchas revistas por ser demasiado incomprensible, blasfemo y desagradable, es una brillante sátira contra los extremos del capitalismo. El protagonista de El diamante tan grande como el Ritz es consciente de que libertad y pobreza no son compatibles pero, ¿de qué sirve ser rico si no se puede conseguir lo que realmente importa? «Lo escribí exclusivamente para mi propio placer. Mi estado de ánimo se caracterizaba entonces por una absoluta ansia de lujo, y el relato se me ocurrió como un intento de saciar aquella ansia con manjares imaginarios». F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Del autor se ha dicho: «Fitzgerald seguirá siendo leído cuando la mayoría de sus contemporáneos ya hayan sido olvidados». Gertrude Stein «Fitzgerald tenía una de las más raras cualidades que pueden darse en cualquier tipo de literatura... la palabra es encanto. ¿Quién lo tiene hoy día? No se trata de esribir de un modo preciosista, o con un estilo sencillo. Es una especie de magia tenue, controlada y exquisita». Raymond Chandler «Fitzgerald representa el estilo, la profundidad y la lucidez. Hay frases en sus libros que quedarán grabadas para siempre en la memoria. Bienvenido sea cualquier pretexto cinematográfico si sirve para que los lectores jóvenes descubran a Fitzgerald. Los viejos nunca hemos dejado de releerlo. La adicción que crea es para siempre». Carlos Boyero, Babelia «Fitzgerald era el mejor de todos nosotros». Ernest Hemingway «Fitzgerald es mi autor favorito». Haruki Murakam

This Side of Paradise - Francis Scott Fitzgerald - F. Scott Fitzgerald's cherished debut novel announced the arrival of a brilliant young writer and anticipated his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. Published in 1920, when the author was just twenty-three, This Side of Paradise recounts the education of young Amory Blaine—egoistic, versatile, callow, imaginative. As Amory makes his way among debutantes and Princeton undergraduates, we enter an environment heady with the promise of everything that was new in the vigorous, restless America after World War I. We experience Amory's sailing hopes, crushing defeats, deep loves and stubborn losses. His growth from self-absorption to sexual awareness and personhood unfolds with continuous improvisatory energy and delight. Fitzgerald's remarkable formal inventiveness couches Amory's narrative among songs, poems, dramatic dialogue, questions and answers. The novel's freshness and verve—praised upon publication, now renowned by history—only heighten the sense that the world being described is our own, modern world.

Volume numero 11 della collana'Classici'a cura di Pierluigi Pietricola.Nick Carraway, voce narrante del romanzo, trasferitosi a New York nel 1922, affitta una casa a Long Island, brulicante di nuovi ricchi disperatamente impegnati a festeggiarsi a vicenda. Un vicino di casa colpisce Nick particolarmente: il misterioso Jay Gatsby, che abita in una casa enorme riempiendola ogni sera di invitati alle sue feste. Eppure vive in una disperata solitudine e si innamorerà insensatamente della cugina sposata di Nick, Daisy.Un capolavoro che, ambientato a cavallo fra gli anni Venti e l'ombra del disastro economico e morale successivo al primo conflitto bellico, che narra aspirazioni e psicologie di un mondo attraversato da fantasmatici eroi pronti a rinunciare anche a sé stessi pur di inseguire un sogno. Ma che, restando fedeli ai propri ideali, vengono schiacciati da una società indifferente e finiscono con il soccomberne.Dal romanzo è stato tratto l'omonimo film diretto da Baz Luhrmann e interpretato da Leonardo Di Caprio.

El gran Gatsby y El extraño caso de Benjamin Button son dos de los textos más reconocidos de Francis Scott Fitzgerald, considerado un clásico de la literatura norteamericana, cuya obra exquisita mantiene toda su actualidad y frescor. Gatsby, el caballero que reina sobre West Egg, el anfitrión de las noches sin tregua, pero también el triunfador marcado por el trágico sino de una soledad no pretendida, es el arquetipo de esos años veinte que se iniciaron con la Prohibición y discurrieron en el gansterismo y la corrupción política organizada. Protagonista de una década que culminaría con la catástrofe de 1929, su imagen de esplendor no hace sino anunciar un drama inevitable. El curioso caso de Benjamin Button es un relato de gran originalidad, inspirado en Mark Twain, quien comentó que era una pena que la mejor parte de la vida se diera al principio y la peor parte al final. Scott Fitzgerald decidió experimentar el proceso inverso en este relato: Benjamin Button nace con setenta años y misteriosamente cumple cada vez menos, rejuveneciendo paulatinamente. Tanto El gran Gatsby como El extraño caso de Benjamin Button han sido llevados al cine, con gran éxito y popularidad.

Hermosos y malditos (The beautiful and Damned en inglés), es la segunda novela escrita por F. Scott Fitzgerald y publicada en 1922. Es un brillante y ácido retrato de la juventud americana de la alta sociedad durante los años 20 del siglo pasado. En una atmósfera de vertiginosa y atolondrada prosperidad, consecuencia de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el soñador, hipersensible, indeciso, irónico y altanero Anthony Patch, protagonista de la novela, su esposa Gloria y los personajes que los rodean se ven agitados por la rebeldía y la desintegración del orden tradicional. En las obras de Fitzgerald siempre se reconocen tintes autobiográficos, el personaje de Gloria se inspira claramente en Zelda Fitzgerald, y Anthony Patch tiene puntos de contacto con el propio autor. Estos dos personajes forman la base de una gran lección. Sintiéndose autorizada por su estatus social, esta pareja vive más allá de sus posibilidades, practica la pereza y no está dispuesta a renunciar a pasar un buen rato. Toda su vida gira en torno a la suposición de que el abuelo de Anthony morirá pronto y que heredarán su fortuna.

Publicada en 1920, A este lado del paraíso es la primera novela del escritor estadounidense Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Su título, que proviene de un poema de Rupert Brooke, nos adentra en los Felices años veinte (roaring twenties), una época de bonanza económica y optimismo que terminó con el crack económico de 1929 y que también se caracterizó por una profunda crisis de valores. El libro nos presenta a Amory Blaine, un atractivo alumno de la Universidad de Princeton que pasa la mayor parte del tiempo escribiendo y que busca desesperadamente el romanticismo en sus relaciones tras los sufrimientos experimentados durante la I Guerra mundial. A pesar de sus esfuerzos, Blaine, quien para muchos está inspirado en el propio Fitzgerald, se ve abocado siempre a la desilusión y la frustración. A este lado del paraíso tuvo un gran éxito y presenta los temas recurrentes en la obra del escritor estadounidense: la búsqueda de la propia personalidad, el mundo aparentemente brillante de los ricos y la desaparición de los valores.

Escrita por Francis Scott Fitzgerald en Francia durante una tormentosa etapa de la relación con su mujer, Zelda Sayre, El gran Gatsby es su mejor novela, considerada actualmente un clásico de la literatura norteamericana. Fue publicada en 1925, cuatro años antes de que estallara la gran depresión económica de 1929, y narra una historia de amor imposible entre Jay Gatsby, un hombre de origen humilde que ha hecho fortuna tras combatir en la I Guerra Mundial, y Daisy Fay, emblema de una generación de jóvenes ricos y descontrolados que viven rápido, inmersos en una resaca colectiva que acabará por destruirlos. Definida por la crítica como la traición del sueño americano, ha sido llevada al cine en varias ocasiones, la última de ellas en 2012 por Baz Luhrmann, con Leonardo Di Caprio y Carey Mulligan de protagonistas.

«El gran Gatsby tiene pocos rivales como la gran novela americana del siglo XX. Al volver a leerla, una vez más, mi inicial y primera reacción es de renovado placer». Harold Blomm En los felices años veinte, en la era del jazz, la ciudad de Nueva York es el centro del universo. Hay música desenfrenada, noches en blanco y champán a raudales; hay contrabando, tiroteos y bonanza económica; y además está Gatsby. Jay Gatsby, enigmático, millonario y hecho a sí mismo, que organiza fiestas de ensueño en su babilónica mansión de Long Island, bailes a los que acude el mundo entero. Y eso incluye a la arrebatadora Daisy Buchanan, la mujer que una vez lo amó, antes de que la abandonase para luchar en Europa, antes de que permitiera que se casara con otro, tan deslumbrante, tan imposible de recuperar como lo es todo tiempo pasado... Una de las grandes novelas de la literatura estadounidense del siglo XX que se ofrece aquí en una nueva traducción, una obra única que, como escribe Jesús Ferrero en su esclarecedor prólogo, «hay que abordar como quien se adentra en un espacio oscilante y mágico, donde todo está matizado y sugerido hasta el dolor y la extenuación, y donde el lenguaje discurre como música de jazz, emitiendo en cada párrafo la luz resplandeciente y líquida de la más profunda y evanescente melancolía».

Libro formado por nueve relatos de intenso trasfondo autobiográfico, inmediatamente posterior a'El gran Gatsby'. Al mundo dinámico de los jóvenes emprendedores que forman la clase de los nuevos ricos se opone el pequeño mundo antiguo de las grandes fortunas, de costumbres arraigadas y decadentes, de prejuicios y frivolidad. En el inevitable choque entre la fascinación por el pedigrí social y el trabajo productivo aparecen estos jóvenes tristes, estos niños ricos propensos a la fragilidad, los amores traicionados, el desequilibrio psíquico, el vacío existencial. La carga generacional y emocional de todos los jóvenes rendidos, vencidos. Bellos e inútiles, se dejan llevar hacia una tristeza sin salida. El texto, a modo de prólogo,'Cómo vivir con 36.000$ al año', nos introduce en el mundo privado de las dificultades económicas de los Fitzgerald; muy similar al de los personajes de estas encantadoras, cómicas y clarividentes historias.

Escrito en 1920 (cinco años antes de la publicación de El gran Gatsby)'El pagaré'es un relato que estaba inédito hasta que en 2017 The New Yorker lo descubrió y publicó. Parece ser que estaba destinado a ser publicado en Harper's Bazaar, pero Francis Scott Fitzgerald se lo quedó para su y nunca lo envió para su publicación. Este relato narra la historia de un editor que acaba de contratar un exitoso libro, las memorias de un médico convertido en espiritualista, titulado La aristocracia del mundo espiritual. Después de un exitoso lanzamiento de medio millón de copias, el editor decide visitar al autor para firmar su próximo libro…

En una carta a Harold Ober, su editor, Francis Scott Fitzgerald le explicaba que concebía sus relatos como si fueran novelas. No se refería a la extensión naturalmente, ni a la complejidad de la trama, sino a las emociones que debían provocar, a su capacidad de conmover a los lectores. Esta explicación quizás encierra la clave de su modo de concebir relatos. Los mejores de ellos, que son muchos, podrían haber sido novelas. Por la hondura de los personajes, por el absoluto dominio sobre la historia que se está narrando, por la capacidad de hacer visible aquello que no se narra y que el lector descubre. La insistencia en las emociones recorre toda su obra, marcada por una serie de temas en los que probablemente sea el maestro indiscutido: las ambiciones de la juventud, el miedo al fracaso, las diversas y dolorosas maneras de desperdiciar una vida, el desamor, la soledad, lo irrecuperable. No hay que olvidar que uno de sus textos más célebres se titula Bancarrota emocional. Como tantos otros novelistas, Fitzgerald durante largo tiempo fue menospreciado como escritor de cuentos. El tiempo corrigió este desdén. Algunos de sus relatos son obras maestras y están entre lo mejor de la literatura norteamericana del siglo XX. Baste mencionar Babilonia revisitada, El diamante tan grande como el Ritz o El extraño caso de Benjamin Button. Esta antología preparada por Carlos Gamerro es una muestra reiterada de ese talento, de una voz distintiva. La prosa clara e iluminadora de Fitzgerald sorprende y emociona igual hoy que en su tiempo. Aquello en lo que tanto trabajó constituye su triunfo póstumo.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

El gran Gatsby, publicada en 1925, ha sido considerada en numerosas ocasiones la mejor novela norteamericana del siglo xx. La historia se desarrolla en Nueva York y Long Island en los años veinte del pasado siglo y retrata de una manera brillante esos locos años de las fiestas, el jazz y el desenfreno previos a la Gran Depresión. Nick Carraway deja el Medio Oeste y llega a Nueva York en la primavera de 1922, una época de relajamiento moral y contrabando, en la que la bolsa sube como la espuma. Nick, que busca su propia versión del sueño americano, tiene como vecino a un misterioso millonario, Jay Gatsby, muy popular por sus impresionantes fiestas. Al otro lado de la bahía viven Daisy y su mujeriego marido, Tom Buchanan.

This carefully crafted ebook:'The Great Gatsby - The Original 1925 Edition'is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald and first published in 1925. It follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors last names - What's Bred in the Bone [Grant Allen] - The Golden Ass [Lucius Apuleius] - Meditations [Marcus Aurelius] - Northanger Abbey [Jane Austen] - Lady Susan par [Jane Austen] - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz [Lyman Frank Baum] - The Art of Public Speaking [Dale Breckenridge Carnegie] - The Blazing World [Margaret Cavendish] - The Wisdom of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton] - Heretics [Gilbert Keith Chesterton] - The Donnington Affair [Gilbert Keith Chesterton] - The Innocence of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton] - Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [John Cleland] - The Moonstone [Wilkie Collins] - Lord Jim [Joseph Conrad] - The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe] - The Pickwick Papers [Charles Dickens] - A Christmas Carol [Charles Dickens] - Notes From The Underground [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky] - The Gambler par Fyodor [Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky] - The Lost World [Arthur Conan Doyle] - The Hound of the Baskervilles [Arthur Conan Doyle] - The Sign of the Four [Arthur Conan Doyle] - The Man in the Iron Mask [Alexandre Dumas] - The Three Musketeers [Alexandre Dumas] - This Side of Paradise [Francis Scott Fitzgerald] - Curious, If True: Strange Tales [Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell] - King Solomon's Mines [Henry Rider Haggard] - The Hunchback of Notre Dame [Victor Hugo] - Kim [Rudyard Kipling] - Captains Courageous [Rudyard Kipling] - The Jungle Book [Rudyard Kipling] - Lady Chatterley's Lover [David Herbert Lawrence] - The Son of the Wolf [Jack London] - The Einstein Theory of Relativity [Hendrik Antoon Lorentz] - The Dunwich Horror [Howard Phillips Lovecraft] - At the Mountains of Madness [Howard Phillips Lovecraft] - The Prince [Niccolò Machiavelli] - The Story Girl [Lucy Maud Montgomery] - The Antichrist [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche] - The Republic [Plato] - The Last Man [Mary Shelley] - Life On The Mississippi [Mark Twain]

A Fitzgerald összes elbeszéléseinek általam összeállított harmadik kötete a következő elbeszéléseket tartalmazza. (Igyekeztem a kronológiai sorrendet betartani, de ez különböző okokból kifolyólag nem mindig sikerül): 1924-ben Fitzgerald még képes volt családi problémáit úgy kezelni, hogy egyszerűen „pénzcsináló” humoros elbeszéléseket írt belőlük. Így a Rag Marin Jones és a walesi herceg III. Kötet szemmel látható megismétlése annak, amit a Kalóz a szigeten mesél: egy gazdag fiatalember azzal nyeri el egy unatkozó dúsgazdag örökösnő kezét, hogy színjátékot rendez neki. Az egy éjszaka alatt megírt Babazsúr egy roppant egyszerűnek látszó kis történet arról, hogy miért veszett össze két szomszédos házaspár egy gyerekzsúr miatt. A Kidobott pénz (The Penny Spent) is egy olyan elbeszélés, mely azt mondja el, hogy a pénznek, vagy a vagyonnak semmi köze sincs az igazi nagy szerelemhez. Ez is többször ismétlődő téma Fitzgeraldnál. Lásd például a Rags Martinn Jones-t. A Saturday Evening Postban jelent meg először 1925. október 10-én, de aztán csak az Egy csöppnyi Édenben (Bits of Paradise) 1976-ban, és utoljára. Valamiért nem tartozott a népszerű novellák közé, és a kritika sem foglakozott vele eléggé, pedig jó és szellemes. A Tánc (The Dance) olyan, mint egy modern krimi, de a témája szintén a szerelem, valamint az Észak és a Dél közötti kulturális ellentét, mely szintén nem új keletű téma Fitzgerald oeuvre-jében. Megjelent a Red Book Magazine-ben, 1926 júniusában, majd 1976-ban a Bits of Paradise-ban (Egy csöppnyi Éden) is. Ezt a történetet (Your Way and Mine) Fitzgerald 1926 februárjában írta a Salies-de-Bearn-i gyógyfürdőn a Francia Pireneusokban, ahol két hónapig „lebzselt” Zelda betegsége miatt. Az elbeszéléshez mellékelt levélben Fitzgerald ezt írta Obernek: „Ettől rosszabb elbeszélést talán még soha életemben nem írtam. Egyszerűen borzalmas! A közepénél már egyáltalán nem érdekelt… Nagyon kérlek – és ezt komolyan mondom – ne ajánld a Post-nak. Ahogy most állnak a dolgaim, azt hiszem, ez nem lenne jó taktika. A Red Book-nak se ajánld. Ebben a történetben semmi sincs az igazi énemből. Kétségbeesetten belevágtam egy történetbe – kitaláltam egy üzleti témát – olyasmit, amiben nem mozgok otthonosan. Kapjak inkább 1000 dollárt érte valamilyen másodrendű folyóirattól, mint a kétszeresét más valakitől. Nagyon erősen így érzek.” Az elbeszélést 1927 májusában viszont a Woman's Home Companion szívesen közreadta, és olvasóknak nyilván tetszett, mert ez követően a Metro Newspaper Service szintén közölte. Ezek szerint mégsem lehetett olyan rossz, mint amilyennek Fitzgerald képzelte. A Látogatás egy régi házban (A Short Trip Home) egy kísértethistória, méghozzá remek, Edgar Allan Poe stílusában. Az embernek a hideg futkos a hátán olvasás közben. Egy fiatal férfi találkozik a természetfelettivel, és megpróbál – sikeresen – megakadályozni egy életveszélyes viszonyt egy kísértet és egy elő széplány között. Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald életrajzírója elmondja, hogy 1926 decemberében két és fél éves franciaországi tartózkodása után az író visszatért Amerikába. Montgomeryben (Zelda szülővárosa) elfogadta John W. Considine-nak, az United Artist producerének felkérését arra, hogy írjon filmet a flapperek világáról. Fitzgerald elfogadta a felkérést, mert (mint mindig) kellett a pénz. Az volt a megállapodás, hogy Considine 3.500 dollárt fizet, amint elkészül a forgatókönyv, és 12.000 dollárt, ha jónak találja és elfogadja. Fitzgerald úgy gondolta, hogy három hét alatt megírja, ám e helyett Zelda és ő 1927. január elejétől március közepéig csak szórakozással, mulatozásokkal töltötte idejét Hollywoodban. A forgatókönyvet (Lipstick = A rúzs) Considine áprilisban visszadobta, nem tetszett ne

Morreria por ti, uma colectânea de dezoito textos inéditos de F. Scott Fitzgerald, constitui um olhar revelador e íntimo sobre o processo criativo de um dos escritores mais importantes da literatura moderna em toda a sua complexidade. Recomendado pelo Plano Nacional de Leitura Perdidas dos leitores por incompreensão dos editores, esquecidas nos arquivos de bibliotecas e de colecções privadas ou na tumultuosa vida de Fitzgerald nos anos de 1930, estas dezoito histórias agora devolvidas à literatura são um eco da nostalgia contida no famoso lamento de Gertrude Stein quando se referiu à «geração perdida». A publicação destes textos, organizados e preparados por Anne Margaret Daniel, devolve-nos um Fitzgerald livre da censura e da esterilização narrativa imposta pelos seus editores contemporâneos. Escrito com a beleza e a genialidade que lhe são características, o autor incontornável de alguns dos melhores clássicos da literatura contemporânea explora temas familiares com uma frescura surpreendente: os sonhos de glória e de êxito, a solidão das pessoas normais e das celebridades num mundo em crise, o meio do cinema e os seus costumes, a doença, a loucura. Um Fitzgerald demasiado realista e inconformista para o tempo que o viu escrever O grande Gatsby e Terna é a noite, mas nem por isso menos genial. Os elogios da crítica: «Morreria por ti destaca-se pela luz que lança sobre o lado mais sombrio e mais autobiográfico de Fitzgerald, num acréscimo indispensável e muito bem-vindo à sua obra. (…) Esta colectânea é prova do tremendo alcance das suas histórias, da sua inteligência mordaz e, acima de tudo, da sua corageme entrega a histórias cujo núcleo emocional deriva de uma realidade absolutamente inflexível.» — Zaina Arafat, Vice «O que mais impressiona nestas histórias é o sentido de humor… No período em que as escreveu, ele falava do desejo de abrir um'novo veio'na sua obra.'Ele estava feliz quando morreu', diz-nos Daniel nas suas notas, e a trabalhar com afinco – uma revelação algo chocante.É uma ideia aliciante.» — The Independent «Não existe, na literatura inglesa, autor que tenha escrito frases mais musicais do que Fitzgerald. Um feito impressionante, considerando a clareza brilhante do seu trabalho. Poucos podem pôr em causa a grandiosidade do pouco que ele escreveu na sua breve e caótica vida.» — The Toronto Star «A precisão e a finura de Fitzgerald excedem largamente os escritores contemporâneos.» — The New Criterion «Uma arca de tesouros demasiado negros para as revistas dos anos 30. Sorte a nossa.» — Newsday «Os aficionados de Scott Fitzgerald têm nesta edição uma emoção que foi negada aos seus leitorescontemporâneos… E sem a censura a que os seus textos costumavam ser submetidos.» — The Dallas Morning News «Uma adição muito bem-vinda ao cânone de Fitzgerald.» — The Washington Post

Az én „Fitzgerald-összesem” első kötetének utolsó elbeszélése A jégpalota volt, a huszadik. Így időrendben a huszonegyedik a Majális New Yorkban (May Day), ami tulajdonképpen, nem is elbeszélés, hanem már majdnem egy egész regény, de annak azért rövid lenne. Ezért szaknyelven „csak” kisregénynek mondjuk. Az eredeti címe – a May Day – mélyen szimbolikus. Először is általános tavaszi népünnepélyt jelent az egész északi féltekén. Sok kultúrában is hagyományos tavaszi ünnep a május elseje, a majális. Táncolnak, énekelnek, sütnek, főznek, örvendeznek ezen a napon az emberek. A nemzetközi munkásmozgalom napjaként is méltatják, méltatták nálunk, Magyarországon is, de csak a tizenkilencedik század végétől a chicagói Haymarketben kirobbant véres események nyomán, de ez az ünnepnap nem azonos a hagyományos májusi népünnepélyekkel. Ennek az elbeszélésnek a háttere viszont az 1919 évi májusi zendülés Ohióban, melynek következtében két ember meghalt és vagy százat letartóztattak. A zendülés politikai jellegű volt: a tiltakozók egy csoportja piros zászlókkal akart felvonulni. Ezt az eseményt követően az Egyesült Államokban általános lett a kommunizmus terjeszkedésétől való félelem, ami aztán erősen beárnyékolta az amerikai történelmet az elkövetkező évtizedekben. Az író ennek is hangot ad kisregényében. 1919. május elsején, azon a napon, amikor a Fitzgerald elbeszélésében történtek elkezdődtek, kommunistaellenes tűntetések vagy lázongások voltak több amerikai nagyvárosban. New Yorkban katonák és tengerészek támadták meg a szocialista The Call újság irodáit a Negyedik Avenue 112-ben. Az egyik újságíró huszonöt láb magasból kiugrott az ablakon, hogy az inzultust elkerülje, és meghalt. A lap tizenegy munkatársa sérült meg komolyabban. Ugyanakkor Fitzgerald rámutat az „elveszett nemzedék” helyzetére is és szembehelyezi a tavaszvárást, egy új életforma (a dzsesszkorszak) kezdetét e nemzedék lelki állapotával, kilátástalanságával, mely elől nem egy fiatal csak a halálba való menekülésben látott kiutat. Ilyen értelemben az eredeti cím nemcsak, sőt egyáltalán nem munkásmozgalmi eseményekre utal, hanem sok minden másra. Ezért is cseréltem fel B. Nagy László korábbi fordításának címét (Május 1 New Yorkban) ezzel: Majális New Yorkban. A szerző egyébként így vall erről a történetről: „Ez a kissé komor mese, mely a Smart Set-ben jelent meg 1920.július havában, azokról az eseményekről kíván beszámolni, melyek az ezt megelőző év tavaszán történtek New Yorkban. Mind a három eset nagy hatás gyakorolt rám. Az események tulajdonképpen nem is függtek össze egymással, legfeljebb csak annyiban, hogy akkor tavasszal kezdődött egy általános hisztéria, mely a dzsesszkorszaknak volt a beharangozója. Ám ebben az elbeszélésben megpróbáltam – tartok tőle, sikertelenül – mégis összefüggően ábrázolni őket, hogy az akkori New York-i fiatalok legalább egyike fel tudja fogni, mi is történt ténylegesen azokban a keserves hónapokban.” A Nagyobb gyémánt, mint a Ritz úgyszintén Fitzgerald halhatatlan kisregényeinek egyike. A saját mondanivalóm helyett inkább újfent a szerzőt idézem: „ A Nagyobb gyémánt, mint a Ritz, melyet az elmúlt nyáron hozott le a Smart Set, csupán csak azért született, mert a megírása kimondottan elszórakoztatott. Akkoriban épp abban az általam szokvány hangulatomban voltam, amikor is az ember a legnagyobb luxusra vágyik, és a történet valahogy úgy is kezdődik, hogy megpróbálja kielégíteni az ilyen képzeletbeli táplálék iránti vágyakozásomat. Egy közismert kritikusnak úgy tetszett, hogy ezt a szertelenségemet valahogy jobban kedveli, mint bármi mást, amit eddig írtam. Nekem személyesen jobban tetszik a Kalóz a szigeten (Offshore Pirate), de hogy – nem egészen pontosan – Lincoln szavaival éljek, „ha az ilyesmit szereted, akkor ez valószínűleg olyasmi, amit szeretsz.” A Benjamin Buttonról pedig a szerző így

Da una lettura a una vita: gli scrittori italiani raccontano del mondo e di sé partendo da un libro. Questa è'PassaParola'. Un giovane arriva a Princeton, l'università di grandi scienziati e grandi scrittori, premi Nobel e ragazzi venuti da ogni parte del mondo per partecipare della stessa inebriante, impressionante, ipertrofica eccellenza americana. Si è laureato alla Sapienza di Roma, si è addottorato alla Normale di Pisa, ha pubblicato poesie, articoli e un saggio sul nonsense vittoriano, ma è cresciuto, come molti italiani nati in periferia alla fine degli anni Ottanta, guardando i Pokémon, giocando di ruolo sulla rete, fumando di nascosto con la scusa di portare fuori il cane (anche se la faccenda del fumo e del cane non riguarda solo i nati alla fine degli anni Ottanta). Dall'orizzonte conchiuso dal nastro del Grande Raccordo Anulare di Roma nelle campagne di Mostacciano, all'America piena di possibilità del grande Gatsby nelle campagne del New Jersey, la formidabile ascesa di un giovane uomo per cui le cose dette, lette, viste e assaggiate stanno tutte insieme nella memoria, nel presente, nel futuro, nell'incanto e nella carne.

Monroe Stahr é um bem-sucedido e carismático produtor de Hollywood, magnata e workaholic. Vive em uma fogueira das vaidades, em meio a cinismo, hipocrisia, promiscuidade e pessoas dispostas a tudo para serem imortalizadas nas telas do cinema. Mas Stahr, este Grande Gatsby da indústria cine­matográfica, não consegue superar a morte de sua esposa, Minna, uma famosa atriz. Até que uma visão o domina: a de uma desconhecida muito parecida com sua falecida mulher...

Un appassionato scambio di lettere che disegna la biografia emotiva e la vita di una coppia bella e dannata, quella di Francis Scott Fitzgerald e sua moglie Zelda. Poche storie d'amore sono diventate una leggenda come questa: uno scrittore di disarmante talento che morì a quarantaquattro anni consumato dalla tubercolosi e dall'alcol, soltanto otto anni prima che l'eterna ragazza in cui aveva specchiato tutte le sue turbolente eroine bruciasse nel rogo di una clinica per malattie mentali. Il giovanissimo Scott incontra per la prima volta a un ballo del country club la bella ed estrosa debuttante dell'Alabama e tra i due nasce un sentimento profondo che saprà sopravvivere a tutte le vicissitudini delle loro esistenze. Insieme, lasciandosi alle spalle le ombre della provincia, conquistano la ribalta newyorkese dove assurgono a simboli di successo, vitalità e sregolatezza dopo l'improvviso trionfo del primo romanzo di Scott Di qua dal paradiso. Poi, decisi entrambi a inseguire un destino speciale, eccoli in Europa, sulle spiagge della Costa Azzurra, a Parigi, tra il bel mondo… Ma ben presto la rincorsa al successo di Scott, ogni giorno sempre più logorato dall'alcol, e gli spasmodici tentativi d'indipendenza di Zelda, rivelatori di una insospettata fragilità nervosa, rendono il sogno della coppia più invidiata e infelice della generazione perduta sempre più impossibile. Il brillante scenario si infrange contro la dura realtà, ma non spezza il profondo e tormentato legame che unisce Scott e Zelda, lacerante fino all'ultima lettera. Come puoi pensare di proposito alla vita senza di me – Se tu dovessi morire – O caro – caro Scott sarebbe come diventare cieca. So anche che lo sarei davvero – non avrei nessuno scopo nella vita – solo una graziosa – decorazione. Non credi che io sia stata fatta apposta per te?… Voglio che tu mi indossi, come un talismano alla catena dell'orologio o come un fiore all'occhiello – davanti al mondo. Zelda a Scott, marzo 1919 « Questa raccolta è il commovente ritratto di una storia d'amore profonda e complessa, lunga vent'anni.» Publishers Weekly

F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, „This Side of Paradise,” focuses on several themes and illustrates some social and moral changes in America during the early 20th century. This semiautobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Amory Blaine is utterly an idealist. He indulges in every sense of his dreams, to the point that it becomes detrimental to the state of his status in life. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the „Lost Generation.” The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking.

Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1920 sulla rivista «The Smart Set», è uno dei racconti appartenenti alla raccolta L'età del jazz, in cui Fitzgerald raccontò la vita, gli eccessi e le sommosse che squassarono gli Stati Uniti del primo dopoguerra. Alla narrazione delle difficili vite di nuovi e vecchi ricchi, reduci di guerra, membri delle confraternite e modaioli di party esclusivi, fanno da sfondo gli scontri e le aggressioni della “Paura rossa” (1917-1920), il periodo disseminato di attentati politici, assalti nelle redazioni dei giornali socialisti, ribellioni sindacali e scioperi nelle fabbriche. Il Primo maggio si mostra così in tutta la sua natura bifronte: da una parte la festa gioiosa per l'inizio della primavera, dall'altra il simbolo della lotta e della ribellione.

Toți acei tineri triști reunește nouă povestiri scrise de Scott Fitzgerald într-o perioadă mai puțin luminoasă a vieții, marcată de deziluzii artistice și sentimentale, de dificultăți financiare și de boală. Volumul realizează o tranziție de la povestirile șlefuite din epoca jazzului la unele mai mature, admirabil construite, care abordează teme extrem de variate, precum căutarea adevărului absolut sau a femeii ideale, destrămarea visurilor din tinerețe, dar și vanitatea, egoismul, neastâmpărul și plictiseala femeii din America anilor'20-'30. Sentimentul de profundă decepție față de femei ce impregnează aceste povestiri nu devine însă nici o clipă apăsător, fiind contrabalansat cu o dexteritate de jongler de umor spumos, ironie acidă și răsturnări de situație absolut surprinzătoare.

Povestiri cu Basil și Josephine reunește cele 14 povestiri scrise de Scott Fitzgerald de-a lungul anului 1928, în timp ce lucra la romanul Blândețea nopții. Cei doi eroi, Basil Duke Lee, personaj în care se poate distinge profilul autorului însuși, surprins în copilărie și adolescență, și replica sa feminină, Josephine Perry, a cărei sursă de inspirație este Ginevra King, prima iubire a lui Scott Fitzgerald, sunt doi tineri privilegiați. Povestirile înfățișează evoluția dramatică a celor două personaje și vorbesc despre relații sociale, moralitate, putere, ambiție, frumusețe și emoții – despre devenire și viața ca suită de nenumărate începuturi.

Cele zece povestiri reunite in volum, scrise intre 1920 si 1937, cind Fitzgerald se afla in plina forta creatoare, ilustreaza perfect rafinamentul stilului sau. In ele prozatorul creeaza personaje memorabile: un miliardar nemilos care detine un diamant cit un munte, o frumoasa nemultumita din Sud care cauta aventura vietii in Nord, un erou tragic ce si-a pierdut mai intii averea, iar apoi tihna familiala si, in general, o pleiada de tineri debusolati, zapaciti si adesea fermecatori din perioada interbelica. Din prafuitul orasel georgian Tarleton si pina la stralucitoarele metropole New York si Paris, Fitzgerald aduce la viata epoca'generatiei pierdute'– o epoca nebunatica si vrajita, tragica si stralucitoare. Prozele din volumul Un diamant cit Hotelul Ritz scot la iveala talentul coplesitor al unuia dintre cei mai mari scriitori pe care i-a avut America. Cuprins: Palatul de gheata • Intii mai • Un diamant cit Hotelul Ritz • Vise de iarna • Iertarea de pacate • Baiatul cel bogat • Cel mai impertinent baiat • Intoarcerea la Babilon • Duminica nebuna • Interminabila iesire

Volumul Povestiri cu Pat Hobby recompune inceputurile cinematografului american inainte sa devina o industrie. Cele saptesprezece Povestiri cu Pat Hobby sunt inspirate din propriile experiente ale F. Scott Fitzgerald de pe vremea cand lucra pentru Universal Studios. Pat Hobby scenarist la Hollywood traieste intr-o saracie lucie in ciuda succesului pe care l-a avut in epoca filmului mut. Viata i se reduce la alcool cinism si o continua preumblare in preajma studiourilor. Majoritatea povestilor il descopera falit mai tot timpul implicat in marunte intrigi financiare sau avand legatura cu mult dorita aparitie pe genericele filmelor. Ineditele intamplari descrise in acest volum sunt pline de umor si de nostalgie fata de inceputurile cinematografului american inainte sa devina o industrie cum sustine cu amaraciune protagonistul.

Ca și Marele Gatsby, Cei frumoși și blestemați (1922) este o poveste despre America anilor'20, o epocă tumul¬tuoasă în care arta, dragostea și banii sînt aproape invariabil însoțite de ambiții nebunești, talente irosite și eșecuri ireparabile, cînd consumul nemăsurat de alcool și strălucirea vieții de noapte devin adevăratul crez al acelei generații despre care Fitzgerald însuși a spus că'a crescut pentru a-și găsi toți sfinții morți, toate războaiele purtate, toată credința în om zdrunci-nată“. Anthony Patch, figura centrală a romanului, este un tînăr estet sofisticat cu studii la Harvard, pe care aburii alcoolului îl vor transforma într-o'epavă josnică și dezgustătoare“. Episodul nefericitei căsătorii cu Gloria – despre care s-a spus că ar fi inspirat din povestea reală de dragoste a lui Fitzgerald și a Zeldei Sayre – se încheie cu prăbușirea celor doi în abisul degradării fizice și morale, un memento amar al strălucirii risipite și al tinereții distruse.'Cei frumoși și blestemați este, printre altele, un studiu al vieții conjugale – o schiță în nuanțe întunecate de sepia. Egoiști, dar fermecători, Anthony și Gloria ar putea să se îndrepte spre cariere de succes în literatură și cinematografie. Cuplul lor radiază o strălucire aparte, însă, pentru că nici unul din ei nu este înzestrat cu scînteia care ar face din această strălucire o flacără creatoare, nimbul care îi înconjoară pălește, se întunecă și dispare. Poate că acesta este rezultatul concluziei amare a lui Fitzgerald că aura unor asemenea oameni este un dar otrăvit dacă nu conduce la o capodoperă, așa cum este romanul de față.“ (The New York Times)

In 1915 Horace Tarbox was thirteen years old. In that year he took the examinations for entrance to Prince-ton University and received the Grade A—excellent—in Cæsar, Cicero, Vergil, Xenophon, Homer, Algebra, Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, and Chemistry. Two years later while George M. Cohan was composing'Over There,'Horace was leading the sophomore class by several lengths and digging out theses on'The Syllogism as an Obsolete Scholastic Form,'and during the battle of Château-Thierry he was sitting at his desk deciding whether or not to wait until his seventeenth birthday before beginning his series of essays on'The Pragmatic Bias of the New Realists.'After a while some newsboy told him that the war was over, and he was glad, because it meant that Peat Brothers, publishers, would get out their new edition of'Spinoza's Improvement of the Understanding.'Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something but Horace felt that he could never forgive the President for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on'German Idealism.'

Volumul cuprinde o selecție de povestiri celebre, începând cu „Strania poveste a lui Benjamin Button“, care a inspirat în anul 2008 o celebră ecranizare, cu Brad Pitt și Cate Blanchett în rolurile principale. Filmul a fost distins cu trei premii Oscar, trei premii BAFTA și a obținut cinci nominalizări la Globul de Aur.

Un tânăr fascinat de visul american, proaspăt venit la New York și doritor de succes, Nick Carraway, împărtășește povestea transformării lui James Gatz în Jay Gatsby. Pe fundalul unei Americi prospere, dar haotice, Gatz, mânat de mirajul iubirii față de Daisy Buchanan, își schimbă viața, devenind din student la Oxford gangster, traficant de băuturi alcoolice și apoi milionar. Iubirea sa pentru Daisy nu se împlinește însă; rămâne povestea donquijotescă a Marelui Gatsby, desfășurată odată cu un iluzoriu, nesfârșit American dream.

SOME of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a neurasthenic cow in the front yard, but Dexter Green's father owned the second best grocery-store in Black Bear—the best one was'The Hub,'patronized by the wealthy people from Sherry Island—and Dexter caddied on-ly for pocket-money. IN the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy—it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare. IN April the winter ceased abruptly. The snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls. Without elation, without an interval of moist glory, the cold was gone. About Author: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) was an American Jazz Age author of novels and short stories. He is regarded as one of the greatest twentieth century writers. Fitzgerald was of the self-styled'Lost Gen-eration,'Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age. Other Books of Fitzgerald:The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922)The Great Gatsby (1925)Tender is the Night (1933)The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)This Side of Paradise (1920)'I Didn't Get Over'(1936)The Rich Boy (1926)Jacob's Ladder (1927)The Sensible Thing (1924) •••

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write'something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned.'That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings.'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--'Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing.'Her voice is full of money,'Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May, 1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Bilt-more Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health, this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a low, incessant fever. Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was directed to a telephone at the side. After a second his connection was made; a sleepy voice hello'd from somewhere above.

This don't pretend to be'Literature.'This is just a tale for red-blooded folks who want a story and not just a lot of'psychological'stuff or'analysis.'Boy, you'll love it! Read it here, see it in the movies, play it on the phonograph, run it through the sewing-machine. • • • It was night in the mountains of Kentucky. Wild hills rose on all sides. Swift mountain streams flowed rapidly up and down the mountains. Jemima Tantrum was down at the stream, brewing whiskey at the family still. She was a typical mountain girl.

A room in the down-stairs of a summer cottage. High around the wall runs an art frieze of a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and so on. In one place on the frieze there is an overlapping—here we have half a fisher-man with half a pile of nets at his foot, crowded damply against half a ship on half a crimson ocean. The frieze is not in the plot, but frankly it fascinates me. I could continue indefinitely, but I am distracted by one of the two objects in the room—a blue porcelain bath-tub. It has character, this bath-tub. It is not one of the new racing bodies, but is small with a high tonneau and looks as if it were going to jump; dis-couraged, however, by the shortness of its legs, it has submitted to its environment and to its coat of sky-blue paint. But it grumpily refuses to allow any patron completely to stretch his legs—which brings us neatly to the second object in the room: SHE is a girl—clearly an appendage to the bath-tub, on-ly her head and throat—beautiful girls have throats instead of necks—and a suggestion of shoulder ap-pearing above the side. For the first ten minutes of the play the audience is engrossed in wondering if she really is playing the game fairly and hasn't any clothes on or whether it is being cheated and she is dressed. The girl's name is JULIE MARVIS. From the proud way she sits up in the bath-tub we deduce that she is not very tall and that she carries herself well. When she smiles, her upper tip rolls a little and reminds you of an Easter Bunny, She is within whispering distance of twenty years old.

The SCENE is the Exterior of a Cottage in West Issacshire on a desperately Arcadian afternoon in August. MR. ICKY, quaintly dressed in the costume of an Elizabethan peasant, is pottering and doddering among the pots and dods. He is an old man, well past the prime of life, no longer young, From the fact that there is a burr in his speech and that he has absent-mindedly put on his coat wrongside out, we surmise that he is either above or below the ordinary superficialities of life. Near him on the grass lies PETER, a little boy. PETER, of course, has his chin on his palm like the pictures of the young Sir Walter Raleigh. He has a complete set of features, including serious, sombre, even funereal, gray eyes—and radiates that alluring air of never having eaten food. This air can best be radiated during the afterglow of a beef dinner. Be is looking at MR. ICKY, fascinated. SILENCE…. The song of BIRDS...

All night in the Pullman it was very cold. She rang for the porter to ask for another blanket, and when he couldn't give her one she tried vainly, by squeezing down into the bottom of her berth and doubling back the bed-clothes, to snatch a few hours'sleep. She wanted to look her best in the morning. She rose at six and sliding uncomfortably into her clothes stumbled up to the diner for a cup of coffee. The snow had filtered into the vestibules and covered the door with a slippery coating. It was intriguing this cold, it crept in everywhere. Her breath was quite visible and she blew into the air with a naive enjoyment. Seated in the diner she stared out the window at white hills and valleys and scattered pines whose every branch was a green platter for a cold feast of snow. Sometimes a solitary farm-house would fly by, ugly and bleak and lone on the white waste; and with each one she had an instant of chill compassion for the souls shut in there waiting for spring. As she left the diner and swayed back into the Pullman she experienced a surging rush of energy and wondered if she was feeling the bracing air of which Harry had spoken. This was the North, the North—her land now!

Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean. Much as I desire to make him an appealing character, I feel that it would be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point. He was a bred-in-the-bone, dyed-in-the-wool, ninety-nine three-quarters per cent Jelly-bean and he grew lazily all during Jelly-bean season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly-beans well below the Mason-Dixon line. Now if you call a Memphis man a Jelly-bean he will quite possibly pull a long sinewy rope from his hip pocket and hang you to a convenient telegraph-pole. If you Call a New Orleans man a Jelly-bean he will probably grin and ask you who is taking your girl to the Mardi Gras ball. The particular Jelly-bean patch which produced the protagonist of this history lies somewhere between the two—a little city of forty thousand that has dozed sleepily for forty thousand years in southern Georgia occasionally stirring in its slumbers and muttering something about a war that took place sometime, somewhere, and that everyone else has forgotten long ago.

There's little comfort in the wise. Rupert Brooke. Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes. Oscar Wilde / To SIGOURNEY FAY Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O'Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family's life, an unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in'taking care'of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn't and couldn't understand her. But Beatrice Blaine! There was a woman! Early pictures taken on her father's estate at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, or in Rome at the Sacred Heart Convent—an educational extravagance that in her youth was only for the daughters of the exceptionally wealthy—showed the exquisite delicacy of her features, the consummate art and simplicity of her clothes. A brilliant education she had—her youth passed in renaissance glory, she was versed in the latest gossip of the Older Roman Families; known by name as a fabulously wealthy American girl to Cardinal Vitori and Queen Mar-gherita and more subtle celebrities that one must have had some culture even to have heard of. She learned in England to prefer whiskey and soda to wine, and her small talk was broadened in two senses during a winter in Vienna. All in all Beatrice O'Hara absorbed the sort of education that will be quite impossible ever again; a tutelage measured by the number of things and people one could be contemptuous of and charming about; a culture rich in all arts and traditions, barren of all ideas, in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the inferior roses to produce one perfect bud.

In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual'There!'—yet at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage. As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honor and slightly mad, a shameful and obscene thinness glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond, these occasions being varied, of course, with those in which he thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well ad-justed to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows. This was his healthy state and it made him cheerful, pleasant, and very attractive to intelligent men and to all women. In this state he considered that he would one day accomplish some quiet subtle thing that the elect would deem worthy and, passing on, would join the dimmer stars in a nebulous, indeterminate heaven half-way between death and immortality. Until the time came for this effort he would be Anthony Patch—not a portrait of a man but a distinct and dynamic personality, opinionated, contemptuous, functioning from within outward—a man who was aware that there could be no honor and yet had honor, who knew the sophistry of courage and yet was brave. A WORTHY MAN AND HIS GIFTED SON Anthony drew as much consciousness of social security from being the grandson of Adam J. Patch as he would have had from tracing his line over the sea to the crusaders. This is inevitable; Virginians and Bostonians to the contrary notwithstanding, an aristocracy founded sheerly on money postulates wealth in the particular. Now Adam J. Patch, more familiarly known as'Cross Patch,'left his father's farm in Tarrytown early in sixty-one to join a New York cavalry regiment. He came home from the war a major, charged into Wall Street, and amid much fuss, fume, applause, and ill will he gathered to himself some seventy-five million dollars.

Trees filtering light onto dapple grass. Trees like tall, languid ladies with feather fans coquetting airily with the ugly roof of the monastery. Trees like butlers, bending courteously over placid walks and paths. Trees, trees over the hills on either side and scattering out in clumps and lines and woods all through eastern Maryland, delicate lace on the hems of many yellow fields, dark opaque backgrounds for flowered bushes or wild climbing garden. Some of the trees were very gay and young, but the monastery trees were older than the monastery which, by true monastic standards, wasn't very old at all. And, as a matter of fact, it wasn't technically called a monastery, but only a seminary; nevertheless it shall be a monastery here despite its Victorian architecture or its Edward VII additions, or even its Woodrow Wilsonian, patented, last-a-century roofing. Out behind was the farm where half a dozen lay brothers were sweating lustily as they moved with deadly efficiency around the vegetable-gardens. To the left, behind a row of elms, was an informal baseball diamond where three novices were being batted out by a fourth, amid great chasings and puffings and blowings. And in front as a great mellow bell boomed the half-hour a swarm of black, human leaves were blown over the checker-board of paths under the courteous trees. Some of these black leaves were very old with cheeks furrowed like the first ripples of a splashed pool. Then there was a scattering of middle-aged leaves whose forms when viewed in profile in their revealing gowns were beginning to be faintly unsymmetrical. These carried thick volumes of Thomas Aquinas and Henry James and Cardinal Mercier and Immanuel Kant and many bulging note-books filled with lecture data.

È l'estate del 1922 quando il giovane Nick Carraway si trasferisce a New York, in un piccolo cottage a pochi passi dalla villa più sontuosa di Long Island. È la villa di Jay Gatsby, un uomo d'affari noto per le magnifiche feste che è solito organizzare nella sua dimora. Ogni sabato sera centinaia di invitati, in abiti scintillanti e auto di lusso, si danno appuntamento a casa di Gatsby, tra musica e fiumi di champagne. E mentre i mesi passano, la curiosità di Nick aumenta. Finché un giorno anche lui riceve un invito. Così, davanti agli occhi di Nick, oltre alle porte della villa, si spalanca il segreto celato in fondo all'animo dell'enigmatico vicino: Jay Gatsby organizza feste straordinarie nell'ingenua e romantica speranza di ritrovare Daisy, la donna che ha amato con tutto il cuore e poi perduto. La commovente storia di una passione folle e disperata sullo sfondo di un'epoca e di una città sfavillanti. Prefazione di Pierdomenico Baccalario.