The Beautiful And Damned By F. Scott Fitzgerald (Paperback, 2004)

Product Description

Exploring the decadence of Jazz Age New York through a fictionalised version of his own marriage to Zelda Fitzgerald F Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful & the Damned

Includes:: an introduction by Geoff Dyer in Penguin Modern Classics Anthony Patch & his wife Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour A brilliant & magnetic couple they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling New York is a playground where they dance & drink for days on end Their marriage is a passionate theatrical performance; they are young rich alive & lovely & they intend to inherit the earth But as money becomes tight their marriage becomes impossible & with their inheritance still distant Anthony & Gloria must face reality; they may be beautiful
- but they are also damned F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history & his masterwork The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the 'great American novel' In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre dubbed 'the first American Flapper' & their traumatic marriage & Zelda's gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing As well as many short stories Fitzgerald wrote five novels This Side of Paradise The Great Gatsby The Beautiful & the Damned Tender is the Night & incomplete at the time of his death The Last Tycoon After his death The New York Times said of him that 'in fact & in the literary sense he created a generation ' If you enjoyed The Beautiful & the Damned you might like John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer also available in Penguin Classics'A prose that has the tough delicacy of a garnet' New York Review of Books