Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Matthew J. Bruccoli, Scottie Fitzgerald Smith (Afterword)

Overview

The standard work on Fitzgerald, revised, enlarged, and updated

Since its first publication in 1981, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur has stood apart from other biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald for its thoroughness and volume of information. It is regarded today as the basic work on Fitzgerald and the preeminent source for the study of the novelist. In this second revised edition, Matthew J. Bruccoli provides new evidence discovered since its original edition. This new edition of Some Sort of Epic Grandeur improves, augments, and updates the standard biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570034558
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/31/2002
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	696
Sales rank:	986,910
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Matthew J. Bruccoli (1931–2008) was the Emily Brown Jefferies Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of South Carolina and the leading authority on the House of Scribner and its authors. He was the editorial director of the Dictionary of Literary Biography and the author or editor of some one hundred books.

Table of Contents

	Illustrations	xv
	Note for the Second Revised Edition	xvii
	Preface to the First Edition	xix
	Acknowledgments	xxi
	Chronology	xxiii
	Taps At Reveille, 21 December 1940	1
	The Romantic Egotist, 1896-1913	9
1	Backgrounds and Childhood (1896-1908)	11
2	A Summit Avenue Boyhood (1908-1911)	21
3	The Newman School (1911-1913)	30
	Spires and Gargoyles, 1913-1917	39
4	A Princeton Freshman (1913-1914)	41
5	Sophomore Year (1914-1915)	52
6	Junior Year (1915-1916)	57
7	Another Junior Year (1916-1917)	65
	The Last of the Belles, 1917-1920	77
8	The Army and "The Romantic Egotist" (1917-1918)	79
9	Zelda Sayre (1918)	87
10	New York: Failure and Heartbreak (Spring 1919)	92
11	Return to St. Paul (Summer 1919)	97
12	The Emergence of a Professional (Fall 1919)	101
13	Zelda Recaptured (Winter 1919-1920)	106
	Early Success, 1920-1925	113
14	A Famous First Novel (April 1920)	115
15	This Side of Paradise (April 1920)	121
16	A Jazz-Age Marriage (Spring 1920)	128
17	Westport (Summer 1920)	139
18	New York and First Trip Abroad (Fall 1920-Summer 1921)	145
19	St. Paul and Revising The Beautiful and Damned (Summer 1921)	149
20	Birth of Scottie (Fall 1921)	156
21	The Beautiful and Damned (March 1922)	159
22	Writing The Vegetable (Spring-Summer 1922)	164
23	Great Neck and Ring Lardner (Fall 1922-Fall 1923)	171
24	Alcohol and the Failure of The Vegetable (1923)	178
25	"How to Live on $36,000 a Year" (Winter 1923-Spring 1924)	185
26	Second Trip Abroad: Valescure and Betrayal (Summer 1924)	190
27	Rome and Capri (Fall 1924-Spring 1925)	206
28	The Great Gatsby (April 1925)	217
	The Drunkard's Holiday, 1925-1931	223
29	Paris and Ernest Hemingway (Spring 1925)	225
30	Paris and Antibes (Spring-Summer 1925)	232
31	Paris and Planning a Fourth Novel (Fall 1925-Spring 1926)	238
32	Juan-les-Pins (Spring-Fall 1926)	245
33	Hollywood and "Ellerslie" (January 1927-Spring 1928)	255
34	Third Trip Abroad: A Summer in Paris (1928)	263
35	Fourth Trip Abroad (Spring 1929)	269
36	Paris and Cannes (Summer 1929)	279
37	Paris: Zelda's Collapse (Fall 1929-Spring 1930)	286
38	Prangins (Summer-Fall 1930)	291
39	Switzerland and Recovery (Fall 1930-Summer 1931)	305
	The Long Way Out, 1931-1934	315
40	Montgomery and Hollywood: Relapse (Fall-Winter 1931)	317
41	"La Paix" and Save Me the Waltz (Spring-Fall 1932)	325
42	Work on Tender Is the Night (Summer 1932)	330
43	Competition and Scandalabra (1932-1933)	340
44	A Novel of Deterioration (1933-1934)	353
45	Publication of Tender Is the Night (April 1934)	358
46	Reception of Tender Is the Night (1934)	363
47	Baltimore (1934)	371
	In the Darkest Hour, 1934-1937	381
48	False Starts (1934)	383
49	North Carolina (1935)	393
50	The Crack-Up (1935-1936)	400
51	Debts (1936-1937)	408
	The Last of the Novelists, 1937-1940	417
52	Hollywood (Summer 1937)	419
53	Sheilah Graham and M-G-M (Summer-Winter 1937)	425
54	Screenwriting (1937-1938)	432
55	College of One (1938-1939)	439
56	Free-lancing in Hollywood (1939)	449
57	Planning The Love of the Last Tycoon (Fall 1939)	457
58	Debts and Esquire Stories (1940)	466
59	Writing The Love of the Last Tycoon (1940)	471
60	Endings (1940)	478
61	Consequences	488
	Afterword: The Colonial Ancestors of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald	495
Appendix 1	Summary Movie Treatment for Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Warren	509
Appendix 2	From Fitzgerald's Ledger	523
Appendix 3	F. Scott Fitzgerald's Publications, Zelda Fitzgerald's Publications, Principal Works about Fitzgerald	545
Appendix 4	Literary Works Published 1913-1940	573
	Notes	581
	Index	607

What People are Saying About This

James Dickey

Matthew J. Bruccoli is always able to look through the events themselves to the essential fact about Fitzgerald: his existence as an artist, and not only to how it came about, but what it came to. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur is exactly what Fitzgerald had. It is a perfect title for this book, for the grandeur is there, in the struggle to create memorable work. I fully expect that this will be the indispensable biography of a very great American writer, for the spirit of the man is in the facts, and these, as gathered and marshalled by Bruccoli over 30 years, are all we will ever need. But more important, they are what we need.

Editorial Reviews

Indispensable and definitive.

The Times Literary Supplement

It is difficult to imagine any work on Fitzgerald and his literary product that will supplant this one.

The New Yorker

Impeccably researched... both comprehensive and judicious... Bruccoli brings Fitzgerald vividily alive.

Newsweek

Impeccably researched... both comprehensive and judicious... Bruccoli brings Fitzgerald vividily alive.

-- "Newsweek"

Indispensable and definitive.

-- "The Times Literary Supplement"

It is difficult to imagine any work on Fitzgerald and his literary product that will supplant this one.

-- "The New Yorker"

This masterpiece contains exactly what we need to know about this dazzling figure.

-- "Publishers Weekly"

From the Publisher

Epic indeed, this is the definitive biography of Fitzgerald, plain and simple. There's no reason to own another. (LJ 10/1/02) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Bruccoli (English, U. of South Carolina) intended his biography, first published by Harcourt Brace Javanovich in 1981, to resurrect American writer Fitzgerald (1896-1940) from the mythology his life had become through the judicious application of facts. More facts are now available. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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