F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Princeton Years : Selected Writings, 1914-1920

Collections of early writings of famous writers can often be dreary affairs, but F. Scott Fitzgerald's early work abounds with life. Because he served such an unusually short apprenticeship he wrote his first, highly successful book, This Side of Paradise, soon after graduating Princeton...his undergraduate work is of special interest. In fact, his college and professional writing careers overlapped. Both This Side of Paradise and Flappers and Philosophers incorporated (with some reworking) some of the early Princeton stories gathered in this volume. In this first complete and chronologically sequenced collection of Fitzgerald's writings for two Princeton publications, The Tiger and Nassau Lit, we can witness Fitzgerald's dramatic growth. We can almost hear him find his voice as a writer. Opportunities to trace the development of style of so significant a writer are rare. These early works of his provide a mirror to his times. His words and the often whimsical sampling!

Fitzgerald stands at center stage throughout this book, but some of the "supporting characters" are notable figures in their own rights. Two of Fitzgerald's closes Princeton friends also opted for writing careers: author/poet John Peale Bishop and Edmund "Bunny" Wilson, who was Fitzgerald's editor at Princeton and became his lifelong "literary conscience" not to mention the most important literary critic in America. These two names will be seen on the masthead of the Nassau Lit along with Fitzgerald's. Scholars will also be fascinated to note that key themes found in Fitzgerald's mature fiction come into focus in his undergraduate work. Heroes and heroines recognizably Fitzgeraldian populate these pages. And the abundant original artwork culled from back issues of The Tiger and Nassau Lit gives the book a delightful visual appeal found in no other Fitzgerald book.