Dear Scott/Dear Max
Correspondence of Scott Fitzgerald and Maxwell Perkins

Chapter 2: Trimalchio (April 1924 - December 1926)

102. To Perkins

Great Neck [Long Island]

[ca. April 10, 1924]²⁷

Dear Max:

A few words more relative to our conversation this afternoon. While I have every hope & plan of finishing my novel in June you know how those things often come out. And even [if] it takes me 10 times that long I cannot let it go out unless it has the very best I'm capable of in it or even as I feel sometimes, something better than I'm capable of. Much of what I wrote last summer was good but it was so interrupted that it was ragged & in approaching it from a new angle I've had to discard a lot of it—in one case 18,000 words (part of which will appear in the Mercury as a short story).^ It is only in the last four months that I've realized how much I've—well, almost deteriorated in the three years since I finished the Beautiful and Damned. The last four months of course I've worked but in the two years—over two years—before that, I produced exactly one play, half a dozen short stories and three or four articles—an average of about one hundred words a day. If I'd spent this time reading or travelling or doing anything—even staying healthy—it'd be different but I spent it uselessly, niether in study nor in contemplation but only in drinking and raising hell generally. If I'd written the B & D at the rate of 100 words a day it would have taken me 4 years so you can imagine the moral effect the whole chasm had on me.

What I'm trying to say is just that I'll have to ask you to have patience about the book and trust me that at last, or at least for the 1st time in years, I'm doing the best I can. I've gotten in dozens of bad habits that I'm trying to get rid of.

1. Laziness.

2. Referring everything to Zelda—a terrible habit, nothing ought to be referred to anybody until its finished

3. Word consciousness—self doubt

ect. ect. ect. ect.

I feel I have an enormous power in me now, more than I've ever had in a way but it works so fitfully and with so many bogeys because I've talked so much and not lived enough within myself to develop the nessessary self reliance. Also I don't know anyone who has used up so much personal experience as I have at 27. Copperfield & Pendennis were written at past forty while This Side of Paradise was three books & the B. & D. was two. So in my new novel I'm thrown directly on purely creative work—not trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world. So I tread slowly and carefully & at times in considerable distress. This book will be a consciously artistic achievement & must depend on that as the 1st books did not.

If I ever win the right to any liesure again I will assuredly not waste it as I wasted this past time. Please believe me when I say that now I'm doing the best I can.

Yours Ever

Notes:

^ “Absolution,” published in June 1924.

27. Between January and April, Fitzgerald, living in Great Neck, Long Island, worked on his novel. On April 1st, Perkins asked if he had decided on a title so that advance publicity material could be prepared. The title which Fitzgerald proposed was “Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires,” but Perkins, on April 7th, opposed this, noting that “The weakness is in the words 'Ash Heaps' which do not seem to me to be a sufficiently definite and concrete expression of that part of the idea.”

Also Turnbull.

103. To Fitzgerald

April 16, 1924

Dear Scott:

I delayed answering your letter because I wanted to answer it at length. I was delighted to get it. But I have been so pressed with all sorts of things that I have not had time to write as I meant and I am not doing so now. I do not want to delay sending some word on one or two points.

For instance, I understand exactly what you have to do and I know that all these superficial matters of exploitation and so on are not of the slightest consequence along side of the importance of your doing your very best work the way you want to do it;—that is, according to the demands of the situation. So far as we are concerned, you are to go ahead at just your own pace, and if you should finish the book when you think you will, you will have performed a very considerable feat even in the matter of time, it seems to me.

My view of the future is—particularly in the light of your letter—one of very great optimism and confidence.

The only thing is, that if we had a title which was likely, but by no means sure to be the title, we could prepare a cover and a wrap and hold them in readiness for use. In that way, we would gain several weeks if we should find that we were to have the book this fall. We would be that much to the good. Otherwise we should have done no harm. If we sold the book under a title which was later changed, no harm would have been done either. I always thought that “The Great Gatsby” was a suggestive and effective title,—with only the vaguest knowledge of the book, of course. But anyway, the last thing we want to do is to divert you to any degree, from your actual writing, and if you let matters rest just as they are now, we shall be perfectly satisfied. The book is the thing and all the rest is inconsiderable beside it.

Yours,

104. To Fitzgerald

June 5, 1924

Dear Scott:

I was mighty glad to hear from you to say you had arrived, and I did whatever you asked me to do in the store—I have forgotten what it was—and then to get Zelda’s very spirited and amusing letter.

I am glad you are deep in Milton [means: Shelley] and Byron. Trevelyan wrote an exceedingly interesting book about both of them—perhaps you have read it. I came across it in college. He told about how Shelley not only had that physical peculiarity which prevented his heart from burning, but that other one of sinking to the very bottom of a pool when Trevelyan told him that all a man needed to swim was self-confidence. No ordinary human being would, of course, sink to a depth of more than three feet or so. There was also a most interesting book by James Hogg about Shelley. Oh, I was a great Shelley fan, and I never fully got over it, though people think badly of him now.

I read your story in the Mercury ** and it seemed to me very good indeed, and also different from what you had done before,—it showed a more steady and complete mastery, it seemed to me. Greater maturity might be the word. At any rate it gave me a more distinct sense of what you could do,—possibly because I have not read any of your other stories in the magazines except “How to Live on Thirty-six Thousand”* which of course was a trifle. This seemed to show a remarkable strength and resource. I was greatly impressed by it.

Did you get the “War and Peace”? Don't feel any obligation to read it because it is better that you should follow your inclination, and time is valuable. The reason I mention it is that it did not get on the steamer^ in spite of the assurances of office boys, etc., that it would, and so I had to send it by mail.

The reason I went down to Ring Lardner's—but I am ashamed to tell you about it. I meant to have a serious talk with him, but we arrived late and the drinks were already prepared. We did no business that night. He was very amusing. The book* is out—you will have had your copy of it. The reviews have been excellent and so far as the reviewers are concerned, the title got across perfectly. I will pick out a bunch of clippings and send them after certain others like H.L.M.^ have been heard from. So far there has not been much of a sale, but all the publicity we have got ought to accomplish something for us. ...

Yours,

Notes:

** “Absolution” in American Mercury, June, 1924

* “How to Live on $36,000 a Year,” an article published in the Saturday Evening Post, on April 5, 1924.

^ The Fitzgeralds had sailed for Europe for the summer.

* How to Write Short Stories [With Samples] by Ring Lardner.

^ American journalist, essayist and literary critic H. L. Mencken.

105. To Perkins

Villa Marie, Valescure St. Raphael, France

June 18th, 1924

Dear Max:

Thanks for your nice long letter. I'm glad that Ring's* had good reviews but I'm sorry both that he's off the wagon & that the books not selling. I had counted on a sale of 15 to 25 thousand right away for it.

Shelley was a God to me once. What a good man he is compared to that collosal egotist Browning! Havn't you read Ariel yet? For heaven's sake read it if you like Shelley. Its one of the best biographies I've ever read of anyone & its by a Frenchman. I think Harcourt publishes it. And who “thinks badly” of Shelley now?

We are idyllicly settled here & the novel is going fine—it ought to be done in a month—though I'm not sure as I'm contemplating another 16,000 words which would make it about the length of Paradise—not quite though even then.

I'm glad you liked Absolution. As you know it was to have been the prologue of the novel but it interfered with the neatness of the plan. Two Catholics have already protested by letter. Be sure & read “The Baby Party” in Hearsts & my article in the Woman's Home Companion.**

Tom Boyd wrote me that Bridges had been a dodo about some Y.M.C.A. man—I wrote him that he oughtn't to fuss with such a silly old man. I hope he hasn't—you don't mention him in your letter. I enjoyed Arthur Trains story in the Post but he made three steals on the 1st page—one from Shaw (the Arabs remark about Christianity) one from Stendahl & one I've forgotten. It was most ingeniously worked out. I never could have handled such an intricate plot in a thousand years. War & Peace came—many thanks & for the inscription too. Don't forget the clippings. I will have to reduce my tax in Sept.

As Ever, Yours

P.S. If Struthers Burt* comes over give me his address.

Notes:

** “Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own.”

* A poet, essayist and novelist whose works were published by Scribners. Perkins had expressed the hope that Burt and Fitzgerald would meet.

*** How to Write Short Stories.

Also Turnbull.

106. To Perkins

Villa Marie Valescure St. Raphael, France

[ca. July 10, 1924}

Dear Max:

Is Ring dead? We've written him three times & not a word. How about his fall book. I had two suggestions. Either a collection called Mother Goose in Great Neck (or something nonsensical, to include his fairy tales in Hearsts, some of his maddest syndicate articles, his Forty-niners' Sketch, his Authors League Sketch ect.

—or “My Life and Loves” (Privately printed for subscribers only—on sale at all bookstores). I believe I gave you a tentative list for that but he'd have to eke it out by printing some new syndacate articles that way. I thought his short story book was great—Alibi Ike, Some Like 'em Cold & My Rooney are as good almost as the Golden Honeymoon. Menckens review was great. Do send me others. Is it selling?

Would you do me this favor? Call up Harvey Craw, 5th Ave—he's in the book and ask him if my house is rented. I'm rather curious to know & letters bring me no response. He is the Great Neck agent.

I'm not going to mention my novel to you again until it is on your desk. All goes well. I wish your bookkeeper would send me the August statement even tho no copies of my book have been sold. How about Gertrude's Steins novel?^ I began War & Peace last night. So write me a nice long letter.

As Ever

Notes:

^ The Making of Americans, then running serially in the Transatlantic Review.

Also Turnbull.

107. To Fitzgerald

August 8, 1924

Dear Scott:

I had yesterday a disillusioning afternoon at Great Neck, not in respect to Ring Lardner, who gains on you whenever you see him, but in respect to Durant's where he took me for lunch. I thought [about] that night a year ago that we ran down a steep place into a lake. There was no steep place and no lake. We sat on a balcony in front. It was dripping hot and Durant took his police dog down to the margin of that puddle of a lily pond,—the dog waded almost across it;—and I'd been calling it a lake all these months. But they've put up a fence to keep others from doing as we did.

About the renting of your house, which has been accomplished, you have heard from Ring Lardner, who says he will see you at Hyeres during September. He did not look well and he coughed. He ate almost nothing and smoked while he ate that. He ordered high-balls. I said I didn't want anything at all; but he stuck to one for himself and so later I took one. I saw no further use in denying myself. We had a number. But Ring told me that to-morrow he would drop both liquor and nicotine so as to do enough work to go safely abroad. He won't drop the strip:—the artist hasn't an idea in his head and counts upon Ring for his living;—is even building a house on the strength of the association. I'd gone through Ring's syndicate articles and found much good in them; and he told me of articles in Liberty and then there are the Hearst articles. I proposed a book selection from all these,—I to select and he to approve, or otherwise; and of this he thought well. But that's for 1925: we hope to carry over the stories through the fall and have planned advertising for mid-August. This Sunday there's to be an excellent ad in the Times. I'll send it over.

Then I proposed that we try to acquire the Doran and Bobbs Merrill books²⁸ ourselves,—if possible, by frank but tactful correspondence, and get prefaces for them and carry them on our lists for the trade and at the same time form a set of five volumes:-a magazine and subscription set such as you first proposed. He thought well of this.

Then I said, “Ring, if it were a matter of money we would be willing to help toward a novel, you know. But I judge the $5,000 or so we'd gladly put up wouldn't count.” And of course he said it wasn't at all a question of money:—but I wanted him to know we were ready to back him anyway. Great Neck is Great Neck even when the Fitzgeralds are elsewhere. He told me of a newcomer who'd made money in the drug business—not dope but the regular line. This gentleman had evidently taken to Ring. One morning he called early with another man and a girl and Ring was not dressed. But he hurried down, unshaven. He was introduced to the girl only and he said he was sorry to appear that way but didn't want to keep them waiting while he shaved.

At this the drug man signals the other, who goes to the car for a black bag and from it produces razors, strops, etc., etc., and publicly shaves Ring. This was the drug man's private barber; the girl was his private manicurist. But as he was lonely he had made them also his companions. Ring declares this is true!

We're living in a quiet cottage near New Canaan. You would hate it but I like it. The nearest we've come to a party was a “beefsteak supper” on the Heyward Broun or Ruth Hale estate,*—an abandoned farm of 100 acres, a ruin of thickets, grass-grown roads, broken walls and decaying orchards. About the only person I knew there, really, among a rather Semitic-looking crowd, was snakey little Johnny Weaver,^ — and that didn't help much. But I had a swim in the lake with Heyward and a man whose name I've forgot. Ruth Hale led me instantly to the punch and filled me a cup because, she said, “I long to see an Evarts** drunk”;—and she added, “I loathe all Evartses”:—she knew some, for her brother, who died—and I liked him much—married a cousin of mine; and during his long, terrible illness there was war between the families as to his care, and I don't know which acted the more crazily. But the Evartses in general are rigorous for duty, the rights of property, the established church, the Republican Party, etc. I suppose that's what sets her against them.

Your standing with the public was never better. I'm always hearing people tell the ideas of your new stories. The novel, if it comes soon, will come at a good time. How will Hovey's leaving Hearst affect serialization? But I'm afraid you'll have to serialize.

My regards to Zelda.

Yours,

Notes:

* Columnist-critic Heywood Broun and reviewer-critic Ruth Hale were married from 1917 to 1933.

^ John V. A. Weaver, American critic, poet and playwright.

** Evarts was Perkins' mother's family name.

28. Between 1917 and 1923, Lardner had published eight books with Bobbs-Merrill (Gullible's Travels, etc.; My Four Weeks in France; Treat 'em Rough; Own Your Own Home; The Real Dope; The Young Immigrunts; Symptoms of Being 35; and The Big Town) and two (Say It With Oil and You Know Me Al) with George H. Doran.

108. TO: Maxwell Perkins

After 8 August 1924

ALS, 1 p. Princeton University

Villa Marie Valescure, St Raphael France.

Dear Max:

Thanks for your long + most interesting letter. I wrote you yesterday so this is just a note. I feel like saying “I told you so” about the Bobbs-Merril + Doran books of Rings but I know that it is mostly Bobbs-Merrils fault and a good deal Ring's.¹ The ad was great—especially the Barrie. I imagine that Mr. Scribner was pleased—and a little surprised. Poor Ring—its discouraging that he keeps on drinking—how bored with life the man must be. I certainly think his collection for 1925 should include all fantasies. Certain marvellous syndicate articles such as the “fur coat + the worlds series” + the “celebrities day-book” should be saved for the “My Life and Loves” volume.² Do read Seldes on Ring in “The Seven Lively Arts.” Be sure to. I'll really pay you to do it before making the selections.³

As Ever Scott

Notes:

¹ Scribners had recently published Ring Lardner's How to Write Short Stories at Fitzgerald's urging, and was negotiating for the Lardner volumes previously published by Bobbs-Merrill and Doran.

² What of It? (Scribners, 1925).

³ See Perkins' 8 August 1924 letter to Fitzgerald in Scott/Max.

109. To Perkins

Villa Marie, Valescure St. Raphael, France

[ca. August 25, 1924]

Dear Max:

1. The novel will be done next week. That doesn't mean however that it'll reach America before October 1st. as Zelda and I are contemplating a careful revision after a weeks complete rest.

2 The clippings have never arrived.

3. Seldes* has been with me and he thinks “For the Grimalkins” is a wonderful title for Rings book. Also I've got great ideas about “My Life and Loves” which I'll tell Ring when he comes over in September.

4 How many copies has his short stories sold?

5 Your bookkeeper never did send me my royalty report for Aug 1st.

6 For Christs sake don't give anyone that jacket you're saving for me. I've written it into the book.^

7 I think my novel is about the best American novel ever written. It is rough stuff in places, runs only to about 50,000 words & I hope you won't shy at it

8 Its been a fair summer. I've been unhappy but my work hasn't suffered from it. I am grown at last.

9. What books are being talked about. I don't mean bestsellers. Hergeshiemers novel in the Post** seems vile to me.

10. I hope you're reading Gertrude Steins novel in the Transatlantic Review.

11 Raymond Radiguets best book (he is the young man who wrote “Le diable au Corps” at sixteen [untranslatable]++) is a great hit here. He wrote it at 18. Its called “Le Bal de Compte Orgel” & though I'm only half through it I'd get an opinion on it if I were you. Its cosmopolitan rather than French and my instinct tells me that in a good translation it might make an enormous hit in America where everyone is yearning for Paris. Do look it up & get at least one opinion of it. The preface is by the da-dist Jean Cocteau but the book is not da-da at all.

12. Did you get hold of Rings other books?

13. We're liable to leave here by Oct 1st so after the 15th of Sept I wish you'd send everything care of Guarantee Trust Co. Paris

14 Please ask the bookstore, if you have time, to send me Havelock Ellis' “Dance of Life” & charge to my account.

15. I asked Struthers Burt to dinner but his baby was sick.

16 Be sure & and answer every question, Max. I miss seeing you like the devil.

Notes:

* Gilbert Seldes, American journalist and critic.

^ The dust jacket referred to showed two enormous eyes, supposedly those of Daisy Fay, brooding over New York City. This picture inspired the image of the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg in The Great Gatsby.

** Balisand.

^^ These brackets are Fitzgerald's.

Also Turnbull.

110. To Fitzgerald

September 10, 1924

Dear Scott:

I would have written you sooner, but if you had ever had hay-fever you would forgive me for waiting a couple of weeks until the “storm” of pollen had somewhat abated. It was worse than usual because our landlady thought she would make profit for her garden by the fact that there were strangers on the premises, with a crop of buckwheat. I knew buckwheat by reputation, but not by appearance, and so it was some time before I found out what was the matter.

…

As to the questions you asked:—The Ring Lardner clippings must have reached you some time ago.

I read a great part of Seldes' book* and got a great deal of fun out of it and considerable illumination. I got it to read the Ring Lardner especially and showed that part of it to Mr. Scribner.

We have sold about 12,000 copies of “How to Write Short Stories”. We have printed 15,000.

There is certainly not the slightest risk of our giving that jacket to anyone in the world but you. I wish the manuscript of the book would come, and I don't doubt it is something very like the best American novel. I found other people that were greatly impressed by your story in the Mercury—a very promising young writer in Philadelphia whom I went over to see, spoke of it without any introduction of the subject from me;—he said he had always looked upon you as a leader, had been at times a little bewildered, and had in this story felt a kind of renewal and advance.

As to the literature talked of,—“The American Mercury” is read by everybody and provokes a large part of the conversation. “So Big” by Edna Ferber is the most popular book, and one of the best. For some reason a good many people are reading a cheap affair by that bucolic sophisticate, Van Vechten, called “The tattooed Countess”. It is clever, but cheap and thin. The somewhat conservative and substantial book readers talk a great deal about a book by E. M. Fo[r]ster called “The Passage to India”, but I have only read about a third of it. “These Charming People”* is very popular among people you would be likely to see here, and word has come to those who have been on the other side, about another novel of his called, “The Green Hat”.

I have got Raymond Radeguet's book and am having it read. I am sending you “The Dance of Life” but personally I was very much disappointed in it because it fulfilled for me none of the expectations aroused by the opening statement of what the author proposed to do. Read individually all the essays are effective, but as a whole it fell down,—or else I did in reading it. All I have been able to get is one number of the Transatlantic Review, which did have one chapter of Gertrude Stein, and that Mr. Scribner^

Notes:

* Probably The Seven Lively Arts (1924).

* A novel by Michael Arlen.

^ The letter breaks off here, unsigned.

111. TO: Maxwell Perkins

Sept 10th 1924

ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University

Villa Marie, Valescure St Raphael, France

Dear Max:

I am in rather a predicament. Mr. + Mrs. Gordan Sarre (Ruth Shepley) have my house, as you know, until the 1st day of October— that is for twenty days after the date heading this letter. Now we left in the house for purposes of subletting.

1 Blue figured dinning room rug

1 Stair carpet

and since I want the former I think its advisable to get it out by Oct 1st— otherwise Mrs. Miller may claim its hers, a way landladys have.

As Ring has gone and my others friends there are drunk and unreliable I'm going to ask you to send the enclosed to some reliable New York warehouse and ask them to call for the rugs and store them on Oct 1st.

I have left the name of the warehouse blank as I don't know one—thats why I'm asking you to pick one out + send it to them. I'm sure they do that sort of thing. This is a hell of a thing to ask anybody but I don't know what else to do as everybody in Great Neck is either incapable or crooked. I'm writing the tenants to deliver the property in question. God almighty! If I only knew a warehouse I could do it myself, but I don't.

Tom's book arrived.¹ I've only read 40 pages but so far its remarkably interesting. The writing is curiously crude, almost Drieserian but I suppose that's deliberate.

Now for a promise—the novel will absolutely + definately be mailed to you before the 1st of October. I've had to rewrite practically half of it—at present its stored away for a week so I can take a last look at it + see what I've left out—there's some intangible sequence lacking somewhere in the middle + a break in interest there invariably means the failure of a book. It is like nothing I've ever read before.

As Ever Scott

Notes:

¹ Thomas Boyd's The Dark Cloud.

112. To Perkins

Villa Marie, Valescure St. Raphael, France

[ca. October 10, 1924]

Dear Max:

The royalty was better than I'd expected. This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemmingway, who lives in Paris, (an American) writes for the transatlantic Review & has a brilliant future. Ezra Pount published a a collection of his short pieces in Paris, at some place like the Egotist Press.** I havn't it hear now but its remarkable & I'd look him up right away. He's the real thing.

My novel goes to you with a long letter within five days. Ring arrives in a week. This is just a hurried scrawl as I'm working like a dog. I thought Stalling's book^^ was disappointingly rotten. It takes a genius to whine appealingly. Have tried to see Struthers Burt but he's been on the move. More later.

P.S. Important. What chance has a smart young frenchman with an intimate knowledge of French literature in the bookselling business in New York. Is a clerk paid much and is there any opening for one specializing in French literature? Do tell me as there's a young friend of mine here just out of the army who is anxious to know.

Sincerely

Notes:

** Probably In Our Time, published by William Bird of Paris in the Spring of 1924. Ezra Pound helped Hemingway get the book published.

^^ Plumes by Laurence Stallings.

Also Turnbull.

113. To Fitzgerald

October 18, 1924

Dear Scott:

As a correspondent you are tantalizing: each letter makes me almost expect the manuscript of the novel before the next week and so that I count upon reading it then. Take your time;—but when it does come I hope it will be at the end of a week so that I won't be continually interrupted in reading it. Today I could do nothing on account of callers: Ellsworth Huntington, geographer and anthropologist for whom we have just published a book*—he promised us an article I suggested for Scribner's; then Ernest Boyd, most amusing, who said he was somewhat apprehensive of your 'reaction' to his chapter on you in a book Doran is issuing^—we are to publish “Studies in Nine Literatures” for him in the spring; then VanWyck Brooks, who is now investigating Emerson; then Burton Rascoe** whom I introduced to Mr. Brownell;++—and they chatted amicably for some time. And there were others too.

I think I shall soon have got something by Ernest Hemmingway though probably from abroad. Thanks for the tip. I am reading the Gertrude Stein as it comes out, and it fascinates me. But I doubt if the reader who had no literary interest, or not much, would have patience with her method, effective as it does become. Its peculiarities are much more marked than in “The Three Lives”. As for “Plumes”, I greatly liked those few pages about the earlier Plumes. I thought them remarkable in swift presentation and characterization; but I couldn't go the rest. His play, “What Price Glory” is a wonder everyone says. I must manage to see it.

The Lardners are I suppose with you. I wrote Ring we had acquired all the books and when he comes back I'll discuss the composition of a set. I hope he has talked it over with you. I enclose a string of ads. we are consistently running. “The Golden Honeymoon” one is, of course, out of key, altogether;—but the chief idea is to catch the eye and hold it a minute. Everyone thinks we have advertised the book well,—perhaps because, liking it, they have noticed the ads.

I told you we'd bought a house in New Canaan. It has the face of a Greek temple and the body of a spacious Connecticut farm house. It's recovering from a devastating raid of plumbers, carpenters, painters, roofers. I thought at one time it never would. We had always meant to leave Plainfield—a damnable flat, damp, dull, cheap place. This is better in almost every respect,—not worse in any. Eleanor Wylie* lives here;—but I have not yet seen that face that launched the souls of three men into eternity. Someone who had, said he could understand about the two husbands but he didn't see why the other man should have committed suicide.—But Louise^ thinks her charming and she must certainly be interesting. Tonight we dine at one Gregory Mason's about whom I only know from having declined two of his novels. I think he's chiefly a newspaper correspondent.

Mr. Scribner always asks about you. We all miss your calls—that's a fact.

I'm sending a good book—Sidney Howard's first.**

Yours,

Notes:

* The Character of Races as Influenced by Physical Environment, Natural Selection, and Historical Development.

^ Portraits: Real and Imaginary (1924).

** American journalist, reviewer and dramatic critic.

^^ William Crary Brownell, writer and critic and senior editor at Scribners.

* Elinor Wylie, American poetess and novelist.

^ Mrs. Maxwell E. Perkins.

** Three Flights Up, a collection of short fiction, published by Scribners in 1924.

114. To Perkins

October 27th, 1924

Villa Marie, Valescure St. Raphael, France (After Nov. 3d care of American Express Co., Rome Italy)

Dear Max:

Under separate cover I'm sending you my third novel:

The Great Gatsby

(I think that at last I've done something really my own), but how good “my own” is remains to be seen.

I should suggest the following contract.

15% up to 50,000

20% after 50,000

The book is only a little over fifty thousand words long but I believe, as you know, that Whitney Darrow** has the wrong psychology about prices (and about what class constitute the bookbuying public now that the lowbrows go to the movies) and I'm anxious to charge two dollars for it and have it a full size book.

Of course I want the binding to be absolutely uniform with my other books—the stamping too—and the jacket we discussed before. This time I don't want any signed blurbs on the jacket—not Mencken's or Lewis' or Howard's*** or anyone's. I'm tired of being the author of This Side of Paradise and I want to start over.

About serialization. I am bound under contract to show it to Hearsts but I am asking a prohibitive price, Long* hates me and its not a very serialized book. If they should take it—they won't—it would put of [f] publication in the fall. Otherwise you can publish it in the spring. When Hearst turns it down I'm going to offer it to Liberty for $15,000 on condition that they'll publish it in ten weekly installments before April 15th. If they don't want it I shan't serialize. I am absolutely positive Long won't want it.

I have an alternative title:

Gold-hatted Gatsby

After you've read the book let me know what you think about the title. Naturally I won't get a nights sleep until I hear from you but do tell me the absolute truth, your first impression of the book & tell me anything that bothers you in it.

As Ever

I'd rather you wouldn't call Reynolds as he might try to act as my agent. Would you send me the N.Y. World with accounts of Harvard-Princeton and Yale-Princeton games?

Notes:

* Ray Long, editor of Hearst's International.

** Sales manager at Scribners.

*** Playwright Sidney Howard.

Also Turnbull.

115. To Perkins

Hotel Continental St. Raphael, France (Leaving Tuesday)

[ca. November 7, 1924]

Dear Max:

By now you've recieved the novel. There are things in it I'm not satisfied with in the middle of the book—Chapters 6&7. And I may write in a complete new scene in proof. I hope you got my telegram.²⁹I have now decided to stick to the title I put on the book.

Trimalchio in West Egg

The only other titles that seem to fit it are Trimalchio and On the Road to West Egg. I had two others Gold-hatted Gatsby and The High-bouncing Lover but they seemed too light.

We leave for Rome as soon as I finish the short story I'm working on.

As Ever

I was interested that you've moved to New Canaan. It sounds wonderful. Sometimes I'm awfully anxious to be home.

But I am confused at what you say about Gertrude Stien. I thought it was one purpose of critics & publishers to educate the public up to original work. The first people who risked Conrad certainly didn't do it as a commercial venture. Did the evolution of startling work into accepted work cease twenty years ago?

Do send me Boyd's (Ernest's) book when it comes out. I think the Lardner ads are wonderful. Did the Dark Cloud flop?

Would you ask the people downstairs to keep sending me my monthly bill for the encyclopedia?

Notes:

29. On October 28th, Perkins had wired, asking when he could expect the novel. On the same day, Fitzgerald replied, also by telegram, that he had sent it but was undecided about the title.

Also Turnbull.

116. To Perkins

Nov. 14, 1924

Dear Scott:

I think the novel is a wonder. I'm taking it home to read again and shall then write my impressions in full;—but it has vitality to an extraordinary degree, and glamour, and a great deal of underlying thought of unusual quality. It has a kind of mystic atmosphere at times that you infused into parts of “Paradise” and have not since used. It is a marvelous fusion, into a unity of presentation, of the extraordinary incongruities of life today. And as for sheer writing, it's astonishing.

Now deal with this question: various gentlemen here don't like the title,—in fact none like it but me. To me, the strange incongruity of the words in it sound the note of the book. But the objectors are more practical men than I. Consider as quickly as you can the question of a change.

But if you do not change, you will have to leave that note off the wrap. Its presence would injure it too much;—and good as the wrap always seemed, it now seems a masterpiece for this book. So judge of the value of the title when it stands alone and write or cable your decision the instant you can.

With congratulations, I am,

Yours,

117. To Fitzgerald

November 20, 1924

Dear Scott:

I think you have every kind of right to be proud of this book. It is an extraordinary book, suggestive of all sorts of thoughts and moods. You adopted exactly the right method of telling it, that of employing a narrator who is more of a spectator than an actor: this puts the reader upon a point of observation on a higher level than that on which the characters stand and at a distance that gives perspective. In no other way could your irony have been so immensely effective, nor the reader have been enabled so strongly to feel at times the strangeness of human circumstance in a vast heedless universe. In the eyes of Dr. Eckleberg various readers will see different significances; but their presence gives a superb touch to the whole thing: great unblinking eyes, expressionless, looking down upon the human scene. It's magnificent!

I could go on praising the book and speculating on its various elements, and meanings, but points of criticism are more important now. I think you are right in feeling a certain slight sagging in chapters six and seven, and I don't know how to suggest a remedy. I hardly doubt that you will find one and I am only writing to say that I think it does need something to hold up here to the pace set, and ensuing. I have only two actual criticisms: -

One is that among a set of characters marvelously palpable and vital—I would know Tom Buchanan if I met him on the street and would avoid him—Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader's eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim. Now everything about Gatsby is more or less a mystery i.e. more or less vague, and this may be somewhat of an artistic intention, but I think it is mistaken. Couldn't he be physically described as distinctly as the others, and couldn't you add one or two characteristics like the use of that phrase “old sport”,—not verbal, but physical ones, perhaps. I think that for some reason or other a reader—this was true of Mr. Scribner and of Louise—gets an idea that Gatsby is a much older man than he is, although you have the writer say that he is little older than himself. But this would be avoided if on his first appearance he was seen as vividly as Daisy and Tom are, for instance;—and I do not think your scheme would be impaired if you made him so.

The other point is also about Gatsby: his career must remain mysterious, of course. But in the end you make it pretty clear that his wealth came through his connection with Wolfsheim. You also suggest this much earlier. Now almost all readers numerically are going to be puzzled by his having all this wealth and are going to feel entitled to an explanation. To give a distinct and definite one would be, of course, utterly absurd. It did occur to me though, that you might here and there interpolate some phrases, and possibly incidents, little touches of various kinds, that would suggest that he was in some active way mysteriously engaged. You do have him called on the telephone, but couldn't he be seen once or twice consulting at his parties with people of some sort of mysterious significance, from the political, the gambling, the sporting world, or whatever it may be. I know I am floundering, but that fact may help you to see what I mean. The total lack of an explanation through so large a part of the story does seem to me a defect;—or not of an explanation, but of the suggestion of an explanation. I wish you were here so I could talk about it to you for then I know I could at least make you understand what I mean. What Gatsby did ought never to be definitely imparted, even if it could be. Whether he was an innocent tool in the hands of somebody else, or to what degree he was this, ought not to be explained. But if some sort of business activity of his were simply adumbrated, it would lend further probability to that part of the story.

There is one other point: in giving deliberately Gatsby's biography when he gives it to the narrator you do depart from the method of the narrative in some degree, for otherwise almost everything is told, and beautifully told, in the regular flow of it,—in the succession of events or in accompaniment with them. But you can't avoid the biography altogether. I thought you might find ways to let the truth of some of his claims like “Oxford” and his army career come out bit by bit in the course of actual narrative. I mention the point anyway for consideration in this interval before I send the proofs.

The general brilliant quality of the book makes me ashamed to make even these criticisms. The amount of meaning you get into a sentence, the dimensions and intensity of the impression you make a paragraph carry, are most extraordinary. The manuscript is full of phrases which make a scene blaze with life. If one enjoyed a rapid railroad journey I would compare the number and vividness of pictures your living words suggest, to the living scenes disclosed in that way. It seems in reading a much shorter book than it is, but it carries the mind through a series of experiences that one would think would require a book of three times its length.

The presentation of Tom, his place, Daisy and Jordan, and the unfolding of their characters is unequalled so far as I know. The description of the valley of ashes adjacent to the lovely country, the conversation and the action in Myrtle's apartment, the marvelous catalogue of those who came to Gatsby's house,—these are such things as make a man famous. And all these things, the whole pathetic episode, you have given a place in time and space, for with the help of T. J. Eckleberg and by an occasional glance at the sky, or the sea, or the city, you have imparted a sort of sense of eternity. You once told me you were not a natural writer—my God! You have plainly mastered the craft, of course; but you needed far more than craftsmanship for this.

As ever,

P.S. Why do you ask for a lower royalty on this than you had on the last book where it changed from 15% to 17 l/2 % after 20,000 and to 20% after 40,000? Did you do it in order to give us a better margin for advertising? We shall advertise very energetically anyhow and if you stick to the old terms you will sooner overcome the advance. Naturally we should like the ones you suggest better, but there is no reason you should get less on this than you did on the other.

118. To Perkins

Hotel des Princes Piazza di Spagna Rome, Italy

[ca. December 1, 1924]

Dear Max:

Your wire & your letters made me feel like a million dollars—I'm sorry I could make no better response than a telegram whining for money. But the long siege of the novel winded me a little & I've been slow on starting the stories on which I must live.

I think all your criticisms are true

(a) About the title. I'll try my best but I don't know what I can do. Maybe simply “Trimalchio” or “Gatsby.” In the former case I don't see why the note shouldn't go on the back.

(b) Chapters VI & VII I know how to fix

(d) His vagueness I can repair by making more pointed—this doesn't sound good but wait and see. It'll make him clear

(e) But his long narrative in Chap VIII will be difficult to split up. Zelda also thought I was a little out of key but it is good writing and I don't think I could bear to sacrifice any of it

(f) I have 1000 minor corrections which I will make on the proof & several more large ones which you didn't mention.

Your criticisms were excellent & most helpful & you picked out all my favorite spots in the book to praise as high spots. Except you didn't mention my favorite of all—the chapter where Gatsby & Daisy meet.

Two more things. Zelda's been reading me the cowboy book* aloud to spare my mind & I love it—tho I think he learned the American language from Ring rather than from his own ear.

Another point—in Chap. II of my book when Tom & Myrt[l]e go into the bedroom while Carraway reads Simon called Peter- is that raw? Let me know. I think its pretty nessessary.

I made the royalty smaller because I wanted to make up for all the money you've advanced these two years by letting it pay a sort of interest on it. But I see by calculating I made it too small—a difference of 2000 dollars. Let us call it 15% up to 40,000 and 20% after that. That's a good fair contract all around.

By now you have heard from a smart young french woman* who wants to translate the book. She's equeal to it intellectually & linguisticly I think—had read all my others—If you'll tell her how to go about it as to royalty demands ect.

Anyhow thanks & thanks & thanks for your letters. I'd rather have you & Bunny^ like it than anyone I know. And I'd rather have you like it than Bunny. If its as good as you say, when I finish with the proof it'll be perfect.

Remember, by the way, to put by some cloth for the cover uniform with my other books.

As soon as I can think about the title I'll write or wire a decision. Thank Louise** for me, for liking it. Best Regards to Mr. Scribner. Tell him Galsworthy is here in Rome.

As Ever,

Notes:

* Cowboys North and South by Will James.

* Irene de Morsier.

^ Edmund Wilson.

** Mrs. Maxwell Perkins

Also Turnbull.

119. To Fitzgerald

Dec. 16, 1924

Dear Scott:

Your cable changing the title to “The Great Gatsby” has come and has been followed; and as I just now cabled, we have deposited the seven hundred and fifteen [fifty].**

…

Ring came in at last and told me about being with you and Zelda, and then I got for the purposes of his book^^ the proofs of his articles about the trip which are to appear in Liberty;—and you and Zelda figure therein. “Mr. Fitzgerald,” he says, “is a novelist, and Mrs. Fitzgerald is a novelty.” And he tells how you got to Monte Carlo with nothing but a full dress coat. His articles are most excellent and I think we shall get a very good book out of all the material we have.

I wish you would see Struthers Burt. You would probably think he was extremely prejudiced in some respects, but he has a very interesting mind. He has a theory on almost every topic that comes up and whether valid or not, all his theories are intricate and interesting.

I hope you are thinking over “The Great Gatsby” in this interval and will add to it freely. The most important point I think, is that of how he comes by his wealth,—some sort of suggestion about it. He was supposed to be a bootlegger, wasn't he, at least in part, and I should think a little touch here and there would give the reader the suspicion that this was so and that is all that is needed.

Zelda wrote me a splendid letter from Rome in return for “The White Monkey”;*—that, by the way, has sold about 75,000 copies, although it came out very late. Tom's book^ has only sold about 3,000 but I really did not think it could do much more in view of its nature. I do think it a very interesting book which, though crudely, shows a great deal of power. We are publishing his stories in the spring.

I lunched the other day with John Biggs and the girl he is engaged to, a very feminine, wide awake, Wilmington girl. They must be going to be married pretty soon because they have bought a house which they are repairing,—that is, if he has any money left. I haven't.

As ever,

Notes:

“ The request for $750 and the title change were contained in a cable dated December 15th.

^^ What of It?, published in 1925.

* By John Galsworthy.

+ Through the Wheat by Thomas A. Boyd.

120. To Fitzgerald

Dec. 19, 1924

Dear Scott:

When Ring Lardner came in the other day I told him about your novel and he instantly balked at the title. “No one could pronounce it,” he said;—so probably your change is wise on other than typographical counts. Certainly it is a good title. I've just put in hand the material for a book by Ring and the first of it is an account of his European trip. Ober,** from whom you will have heard, called up this morning to say Liberty had decided not to take “The Great Gatsby” though Rex Lardner wanted to, because it was really above their readers and they did not want to run two serials at once. So we shall go ahead full speed;—and will you read the proof rapidly?

Not long ago I had a call from John Peale Bishop,++ who must get himself a job. He said nothing of his novel, nor did I. He looked, to me, quite a bit older than before he went abroad,—more than two years older;—said he and she were living in a roof house,—a little four room ediface, which sounded most attractive to me; but he did not regard it so poetically. He told of seeing you in Paris at a late hour in the early summer. By the way, I've only just now got word that something by that Hemingway you told me of is in a case at the custom's house,—a case of books. Did you ever look at that Will James book—not that I want you to: I'd rather you'd write than read.—But I have an idea that he could write a fine story—a sort of cowboy's Odyssey about a cattle drive or some such episode;—that with the barest tale to tell he would gain a continuity of interest that would greatly enhance the attraction of his writing. It would give him a show. I've proposed it to him. To be illustrated, of course, by him.

Here we are in our house since a week ago, and last night the new kitchen ceiling fell down. Now what the hell! And the men who put it up don't even seem surprised. They're perfectly willing to put up another though at twelve dollars a day per man. They're a great bunch, these members of what Ring Lardner might laughingly call the “laboring class”. But the house suits us anyway.

Yours as ever,

Notes:

** Literary agent Harold Ober, an associate at this time of Paul Reynolds. Ober was gradually taking over from Reynolds the placing of Fitzgerald's work.

^^ American poet and novelist who had attended Princeton with Fitzgerald.

121. To Perkins

Hotel des Princes Piazza di Spagna Rome, Italy

[ca. December 20, 1924]

Dear Max:

I'm a bit (not very—not dangerously) stewed tonight & I'll probably write you a long letter. We're living in a small, unfashionable but most comfortable hotel at $525.00 a month including tips, meals ect. Rome does not particularly interest me but its a big year here, and early in the spring we're going to Paris. There's no use telling you my plans because they're usually just about as unsuccessful as to work as a religious prognosticaters are as to the End of the World. I've got a new novel to write—title and all, that'll take about a year. Meanwhile, I don't want to start it until this is out & meanwhile I'll do short stories for money (I now get $2000.00 a story but I hate worse than hell to do them) and there's the never dying lure of another play.

Now! Thanks enormously for making up the $5000.00* I know I don't technically deserve it considering I've had $3000.00 or $4000.00 for as long as I can remember. But since you force it on me (inexecrable [or is it execrable] joke) I will accept it. I hope to Christ you get 10 times it back on Gatsby—and I think perhaps you will.

For:

I can now make it perfect but the proof (I will soon get the immemorial letter with the statement “We now have the book in hand and will soon begin to send you proof” [what is 'in hand'—I have a vague picture of everyone in the office holding the book in the light and and reading it]+) will be one of the most expensive affairs since Madame Bovary. Please charge it to my account. If its possible to send a second proof over here I'd love to have it. Count on 12 days each way—four days here on first proof & two on the second. I hope there are other good books in the spring because I think now the public interest in books per se rises when there seems to be a group of them as in 1920 (spring & fall), 1921 (fall), 1922 (spring). Ring's & Tom's* (first) books, Willa Cathers Lost Lady & in an inferior, cheap way Edna Ferber's are the only American fiction in over two years that had a really excellent press (say, since Babbit).

With the aid you've given me I can make “Gatsby” perfect. The chapter VII (the hotel scene) will never quite be up to mark—I've worried about it too long & I can't quite place Daisy's reaction. But I can improve it a lot. It isn't imaginative energy that's lacking- its because I'm automaticly prevented from thinking it out over again because I must get all those characters to New York in order to have the catastrophe on the road going back & I must have it pretty much that way. So there's no chance of bringing the freshness to it that a new free conception sometimes gives.

The rest is easy and I see my way so clear that I even see the mental quirks that queered it before. Strange to say my notion of Gatsby's vagueness was O.K. What you and Louise & Mr. Charles Scribner found wanting was that:

I myself didn't know what Gatsby looked like or was engaged in & you felt it. If I'd known & kept it from you you'd have been too impressed with my knowledge to protest. This is a complicated idea but I'm sure you'll understand. But I know now—and as a penalty for not having known first, in other words to make sure I'm going to tell more.

It seems of almost mystical significance to me that you thot he was older—the man I had in mind, half unconsciously, was older (a specific individual) and evidently, without so much as a definate word, I conveyed the fact.—or rather, I must qualify this Shaw-Desmond-trash by saying that I conveyed it without a word that I can at present and for the life of me, trace. (I think Shaw Desmond^ was one of your bad bets—I was the other)

Anyhow after careful searching of the files (of a man's mind here) for the Fuller Magee case** & after having had Zelda draw pictures until her fingers ache I know Gatsby better than I know my own child. My first instinct after your letter was to let him go & have Tom Buchanan dominate the book (I suppose he's the best character I've ever done—I think he and the brother in “Salt” & Hurstwood in “Sister Carrie” are the three best characters in American fiction in the last twenty years, perhaps and perhaps not) but Gatsby sticks in my heart. I had him for awhile then lost him & now I know I have him again. I'm sorry Myrtle is better than Daisy. Jordan of course was a great idea (perhaps you know its Edith Cummings)* but she fades out. Its Chap VII thats the trouble with Daisy & it may hurt the book's popularity that its a man's book.

Anyhow I think (for the first time since The Vegetable failed) that I'm a wonderful writer & its your always wonderful letters that help me to go on believing in myself.

Now some practical, very important questions. Please answer every one.

1. Montenegro has an order called The Order of Danilo. Is there any possible way you could find out for me there what it would look like—whether a courtesy decoration given to an American would bear an English inscription—or anything to give versimilitude to the medal which sounds horribly amateurish.

2. Please have no blurbs of any kind on the jacket!!! No Mencken or Lewis or Sid Howard or anything. I don't believe in them one bit any more.

3. Don't forget to change name of book in list of works

4. Please shift exclamation point from end of 3d line to end of 4th line in title page poem. Please! Important!

5. I thought that the whole episode (2 paragraphs) about their playing the Jazz History of the world at Gatsby's first party was rotten. Did you? Tell me frank reaction—personal, don't think! We can all think!

Got a sweet letter from Sid Howard—rather touching. I wrote him first. I thought Transatlantic was great stuff—a really gorgeous surprise. Up to that I never believed in him 'specially & I was sorry because he did in me. Now I'm tickled silly to find he has power, and his own power. It seemed tragic too to see Mrs. Viectch wasted in a novelette when, despite Anderson the short story is at its lowest ebb as an art form. (Despite Ruth Suckow, Gertrude Stien, Ring there is a horrible impermanence on it because the overwhelming number of short stories are impermanent.

Poor Tom Boyd! His cycle sounded so sad to me—perhaps it'll be wonderful but it sounds to me like sloughing in a field whose first freshness has gone.

See that word?* The ambition of my life is to make that use of it correct. The temptation to use it as a neuter is one of the vile fevers in my still insecure prose.

Tell me about Ring! About Tom—is he poor? He seems to be counting on his short story book, frail cane! About Biggs***—did he ever finish the novel? About Peggy Boyd****. I think Louise might have sent us her book!

I thot the White Monkey was stinko. On second thoughts I didn't like Cowboys, West & South either. What about Bal de Compte Orget? and Ring's set? and his new book? & Gertrude Stien? and Hemmingway?

I still owe the store almost $700 on my Encyclopedia but I'll pay them on about Jan 10th—all in a lump as I expect my finances will then be on a firm footing. Will you ask them to send me Ernest Boyd's book*****? Unless it has about my drinking in it that would reach my family. However, I guess it'd worry me more if I hadn't seen it than if I had. If my book is a big success or a great failure (financial—no other sort can be imagined, I hope) I don't want to publish stories in the fall. If it goes between 25,000 and 50,000 I have an excellent collection for you. This is the longest letter I've written in three or four years. Please thank Mr. Scribner for me for his exceeding kindness.

Always yours

Notes:

^ These brackets are Fitzgerald's

* Thomas A. Boyd best known for his war novel, Through the Wheat.

^ Irish poet, dramatist and novelist.

** Edward M. Fuller and William F. McGee, partners in a brokerage firm, had been convicted, after four trials, of pocketing their customers' order money. Arnold Rothstein, the famous gambler and model for Meyer Wolfsheim in Gatsby, was the man behind Fuller and McGee. Fuller was Fitzgerald's neighbor in Great Neck.

* A famous woman golfer who once won the women's national championship. Fitzgerald had met her when she was a classmate at Westover School of Ginevra King, a girl he dated while he was at Princeton.

* Fitzgerald had circled “whose” in the previous sentence.

* The $750 as per Fitzgerald's telegram of December 15th made a total of $5000 advanced him on the publication of Gatsby.

*** Fitzgerald's college friend, John Biggs.

**** Mrs. Thomas Boyd.

***** Portraits Real and Imaginary

Also Turnbull.

122. To Perkins

Hotel des Princes Rome

[ca. January 15, 1925]

Dear Max:

Proof hasn't arrived yet. Have been in bed for a week with grippe but I'm ready to attack it violently. Here are two important things.

1. In [Is] the scene in Myrt[l]es appartment—in the place where Tom & Myrtle dissapear for awhile noticeably raw. Does it stick out enough so that the censor might get it. Its the only place in the book I'm in doubt about on that score. Please let me know right away.

2. Please have no quotations from any critics whatsoever on the jacket -simply your own blurb on the back and don't give away too much of the idea—especially don't connect Daisy & Gatsby (I need the quality of surprise there.) Please be very general.

These points are both very important. Do drop me a line about them. Wish I could see your new house. I havn't your faith in Will James—I feel its old material without too much feeling or too new a touch.

As Ever,

123. To Fitzgerald

Jan. 20, 1925

Dear Scott:

I am terribly rushed for time so I am answering your letter as briefly and rapidly as I can,—but I will have a chance to write to tell you the news, etc. etc., soon.

First as to the jazz history of the world:—that did jar on me unfavorably. And yet in a way it pleased me as a tour de force, but one not completely successful. Upon the whole, I should probably have objected to it in the first place except that I felt you needed something there in the way of incident, something special. But if you have something else, I would take it out.

You are beginning to get me worried about the scene in Myrtle's apartment for you have spoken of it several times. It never occurred to me to think there was any objection to it. I am sure there is none. No censor could make an issue on that,—nor I think on anything else in the book.

I will be sure not to use any quotations and I will make it very general indeed, because I realize that not much ought to be said about the story. I have not thought what to say, but we might say something very brief which gave the impression that nothing need any longer be said.

I certainly hope the proofs have got to you and that you have been at work on them for some time. If not you had better cable. They were sent first-class mail. The first lot on December 27th and the second lot on December 30th.

Yours,

P.S. The mysterious hand referred to in the immemorial phrase is that of the typesetter.

124. To Perkins

Hotel des Princes, Rome, Italy.

January 24th. = 1925

(But address the American Express Co. because its damn cold here and we may leave any day.

Dear Max:

This is a most important letter so I'm having it typed. Guard it as your life.

1) Under a separate cover I'm sending the first part of the proof. While I agreed with the general suggestions in your first letters I differ with you in others. I want Myrtle Wilson's breast ripped off- its exactly the thing, I think, and I don't want to chop up the good scenes by too much tinkering. When Wolfsheim says “sid” for “said”, it's deliberate. “Orgastic” is the adjective from “orgasm” and it expresses exactly the intended ecstasy. It's not a bit dirty. I'm much more worried about the disappearance of Tom and Myrtle on Galley 9—I think it's all right but I'm not sure. If it isn't please wire and I'll send correction.³⁰

2) Now about the page proof—under certain conditions never mind sending them (unless, of course, there's loads of time, which I suppose there isn't. I'm keen for late March or early April publication)

The conditions are two.

a) That someone reads it very carefully twice to see that every one of my inserts are put in correctly. There are so many of them that I'm in terror of a mistake.

b) That no changes whatsoever are made in it except in the case of a misprint so glaring as to be certain, and that only by you.

If there's some time left but not enough for the double mail send them to me and I'll simply wire O.K. which will save two weeks. However don't postpone for that. In any case send me the page proof as usual just to see.

3) Now, many thanks for the deposit. Two days after wiring you I had a cable from Reynolds that he'd sold two stories of mine for a total of $3,750. but before that I was in debt to him and after turning down the ten thousand dollars from College Humor* I was afraid to borrow more from him until he'd made a sale. I won't ask for any more from you until the book has earned it. My guess is that it will sell about 80,000 copies but I may be wrong. Please thank Mr. Charles Scribner for me. I bet he thinks he's caught another John Fox** now for sure. Thank God for John Fox. It would have been awful to have had no predecessor

4) This is very important. Be sure not to give away any of my plot in the blurb. Don't give away that Gatsby dies or is a parvenu or a crook or anything. Its a part of the suspense of the book that all these things are in doubt until the end. You'll watch this won't you? And remember about having no quotations from critics on the jacket- not even about my other books!

5) This is just a list of small things.

a) What's Ring's title for his spring book?

b) Did O'Brien star my story “Absolution” or any of my others on his trash-album?***

c) I wish your bookkeeping department would send me an account on February first. Not that it gives me pleasure to see how much in debt I am but that I like to keep a yearly record of the sales of all my books.

Do answer every question and keep this letter until the proof comes. Let me know how you like the changes. I miss seeing you, Max, more than I can say.

As ever,

P. S. I'm returning the proof of the title page ect. It's O.K. but my heart tells me I should have named it Trimalchio. However against all the advice I suppose it would have been stupid and stubborn of me. Trimalchio in West Egg was only a compromise. Gatsby is too much like Babbit and The Great Gatsby is weak because there's no emphasis even ironically on his greatness or lack of it. However let it pass.

Notes:

* To serialize The Great Gatsby.

** A Scribner novelist who had written some runaway best sellers.

*** Best American Short Stories, collected annually by Edward J. O'Brien.

30. Early in February, Fitzgerald wrote, “I've thought it over & decided the Tom & Myrtle episode in Chap. HI isn't half as rough as lots of things in the B.&D. and should stand.”

Also Turnbull.

125. TO: Maxwell Perkins

Late January 1925

ALS, 1 p. Princeton University

Rome American Express Co.

Most important of all, I've thought it over + decided the Tom + Myrtle episode in Chap III isn't half as rough as lots of things in the B.+D. and should stand. Havn't heard from you on the subject but sure you agree

Dear Max:

Three things

(1.) The Plaza Hotel scene (Chap VII) is now wonderful and that makes the book wonderful. It should reach you in 3 days

(2) I hope you're sending Irene de Moirier¹ the page proof and not the galley. Sure!

(3) Didn't you think I was heroic to turn down $10,000.² God! I wish I'd been a month earlier with it.

No news. Proof should all reach you within 10 days after this letter

Scott.

Starved for news!!!

Notes:

¹ Miss de Moirier was planning to translate The Great Gatsby into French, but dropped the project.

² College Humor had offered $10,000 for serial rights to The Great Gatsby, which would have delayed publication.

126. To Perkins

new address Hotel Tiberio Capri

[ca. February 18, 1925]

Dear Max:

After six weeks of uninterrupted work the proof is finished and the last of it goes to you this afternoon. On the whole its been very successful labor

(1.) I've brought Gatsby to life

(2.) I've accounted for his money

(3.) I've fixed up the two weak chap[t]ers (VI and VII)

(4.) I've improved his first party

(5.) I've broken up his long narrative in Chap. VIII

This morning I wired you to hold up the galley of Chap 40. The correction—and God! its important because in my other revision I made Gatsby look too mean—is enclosed herewith. Also some corrections for the page proof.

We're moving to Capri. We hate Rome. I'm behind financially and have to write three short stories. Then I try another play, and by June, I hope, begin my new novel.

Had long interesting letters from Ring and John Bishop. Do tell me if all corrections have been recieved. I'm worried.

I hope you're setting publication date at first possible moment.

Notes:

Also Turnbull.

127. To Fitzgerald

Feb. 24, 1925

Dear Scott:

I congratulate you on resisting the $10,000. I don't see how you managed it. But it delighted us, for otherwise book publication would have been deferred until too late in the spring… Those [changes] you have made do wonders for Gatsby,—in making him visible and palpable. You're right about the danger of meddling with the high spots—instinct is the best guide there. I'll have the proofs read twice, once by Dunn and once by Roger,* and shall allow no change unless it is certain the printer has blundered. I know the whole book so well myself that I could hardly decide wrongly. But I won't decide anything if there is ground for doubt.

Ring Lardner came back last week from Nassau looking brown and well, with the page proof of his new book—“What of It”. I'll send you a copy soon. That and “How to Write Short Stories,” “Alibi Ike,” “The Big Town,” and “Gullible's Travels,” with new prefaces, constitute the set. I simply could not get Ring to pay enough attention to it to reorganize the material as we might have done. I tried to work out a book to contain “Symptoms of Being 35” and some of the shorter things; but without the war material—which, good as it was, seems dreadfully old now—there was not enough. And the subscription agents wanted to retain the familiar titles for their canvassing. “How to Write Short Stories” has sold 16,500 copies and it continues steadily to sell: the new book and the old books in new forms and wrappers, in the trade, will give it new impetus. We'll have a wonderful Ring Lardner window when we get all these books out.

As for Hemingway: I finally got his “In our time” which accumulates a fearful effect through a series of brief episodes, presented with economy, strength and vitality. A remarkable, tight, complete expression of the scene, in our time, as it looks to Hemingway. I have written him that we wish he would write us about his plans and if possible send a ms.; but I must say I have little hope that he will get the letter,—so hard was it for me to get his book. Do you know his address?

Here, the great recent piece of literary gossip arose from a luncheon to Sherwood Anderson given by his publisher Ben Heubsch. All the critics and commentators were guests, including Stuart P. Sherman^ and Mencken;—and Mencken refused to meet Sherman. Not point blank, but in such a way that all the room was aware; and the general tension was not reduced when, upon Anderson's refusal to speak, old Dutch Van Loon** arose and said perhaps a question he had long wanted to ask him might suggest a topic:—why did he let Ben Heubsch publish his books?—If it was a jest, and heaven knows how it was, there was too much truth in the implication. As for the other situation, Sherman has set upon Mencken with violence, in his articles, a number of times. But Mencken is not the man to resent that, even when, as once he did, I suppose to draw him out, Sherman charged him with cowardice. Apparently Mencken has detested Sherman on account of some anti-German-American articles he wrote during the war. I'm to see Sherman Wednesday and may hear more about it,—not that it matters.

There are here two couples we much enjoy seeing: the Benets* and the Colums. Molly Colum I think is a wonder, quick as a cat. And Padriac trails along an atmosphere of good nature and peaceful humor. Elinor Wylie is very much of a person, and Benet I like.—At all events, there was no one in Plainfield of this sort whatever. It was a bore there to go anywhere unless artificial stimulant was plentiful.

The other day I sent Tom Boyd a cheque of about $683 in royalties. “The Dark Cloud” is to be published by Fisher Unwin in England, which will help. We're publishing his stories under the title, “Points of Honor”,—not with the hope of much of a sale of course; but they will help him, and while I hardly took seriously his idea of a trilogy, I have hopes of the book he is now doing by itself, not because I know much of it but because I believe in him once he gets control of himself. Some of the best find that the hardest. I think he is utterly honest, and has strong, deep feeling, which is the great thing. He does not work hard over his writing—once it is down on paper it seems to bore him;—but this he realizes…

…

As ever,

Notes:

* Charles Dunn and Roger Burlingame, Scribners editors.

* American literary critic, then editor of the New York Herald Tribune Sunday Books section.

** Hendrik Willem Van Loon, Dutch-American historian, then Associate Editor of the Baltimore Sun.

* William Rose Benet, American poet, novelist and critic, was married to poetess Elinor Wylie from 1923 until her sudden and premature death in 1928.

128. TO: Maxwell Perkins

c. March 12, 1925

ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University; Life In Letters.

Hotel Tiberio, Capri

Dear Max:

Thanks many times for your nice letter. You answered all questions (except about the account) I wired you on a chance about the title[31]—I wanted to change back to Gold-hatted Gatsby but I don’t suppose it would matter. That’s the one flaw in the book—I feel Trimalchio might have been best after all.

Don’t forget to send Ring’s book. Hemmingway could be reached, I’m sure, through the Transatlantic review. I’m going to look him up when we get to Paris. I think its amusing about Sherman and Mencken—however Sherman’s such a louse that it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t have shaken Mencken’s hand during the war—he’s only been bullied into servility and all the Tribune appointments in the world wouldn’t make him more than 10th rate. Poor Sherwood Anderson. What a mess his life is—almost like Driesers. Are you going to do “Le Bal de Compte Orgel”—I think you’re losing a big opportunity if you dont. The success of The Little French Girl is a pointer of taste—and this is really French, and sensational and meritorious besides.

I hope you’re sending page proofs to that French woman who wants to translate Gatsby! I’m sending in two other envelopes.

(1.) Cards to go in books to go to critics

(2) " " " " " " " " friends

Also, I’m enclosing herewith a note I wish you’d send down to the retail dept.

They won’t forget to send copies to all the liberal papers—Freeman, Liberator, Transatlantic, Dial ect?

Can’t you send me
a jacket now?
Scott

While, on the contrary these 16 are all personal. Like wise I wish they’d tear off the adress and send each message in a book charged to my account.

For myself in Europe 6 books will be enough—one post haste and five at liesure.
Fitzg.

Notes:

In his February 24, 1925, letter Perkins had reported on a confrontation between New York Herald Tribune Books editor Stuart P. Sherman and H. L. Mencken.

Popular 1924 novel by Anne Douglas Sedgwick.

31. On March 7th, Fitzgerald had wired, “Is it too late to change title[?]” Perkins replied, also by cable, on March 9th, “Title change would cause bad delay and confusion.”

[Attachments:]

128a. TO: Robert Kerr

April 1925

Inscription pasted in The Great Gatsby.

Doris Kerr Brown

Capri, Italy

Dear Bob: Keep readingand you'll finally come to ...

128b. TO: Van Wyck Brooks

April 1925

Inscription pasted in The Great Gatsby.

Bruccoli

Capri, Italy

Dear Brooks: I'm taking the liberty ...

Van Wyck Brooks - Literary historian and critic.

128c. TO: Sinclair Lewis

April 1925

Inscription pasted in The Great Gatsby.

University of Tulsa

Capri, Italy

Dear Sinclair Lewis: I've just sent for Arrowsmith. ...

128d. TO: H. L. Mencken

April 1925

Inscription pasted in The Great Gatsby.

Enoch Pratt Free Library

Capri, Italy

Dear Menck: This is a grand book. ...

128e. TO: Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald

April 1925

Inscription pasted in The Great Gatsby. Auction

Capri, Italy

It's a masterpiece, Mother. Write me how you like it.

128f. Other presentation slips

April 1925

Lily Library, Indiana University

List of names:
Franklin P. Adams,
Herbert Agar,
Thomas Beer,
Prince Antoine Bibesco,
John Peale Bishop,
Ernest Boyd,
Thomas A. Boyd,
Heywood Broun,
James Branch Cabell,
Henry Siedel Canby,
Mary Coleman,
William Curtiss,
Benjamin de Casseris,
John Farrar,
Blair Flandran,
John Galesworthy,
Hildegarde Hawthorne,
Sidney Howard,
Robert McClure,
Cyril Maplethorpe,
Eunice Nathan,
George Jean Nathan,
Burton Rascoe,
Paul Rosenfeld,
Mrs. A.D. Sayre,
Gilbert Seldes,
Laurence Stallings,
Charles Hanson Towne,
Carl Van Doren,
Carl Van Vetchten,
Bernard Vaughn,
J.A.V. Weaver,
Edmund Wilson Jr.,
Alexander Wolcott

129. To Fitzgerald

March 19, 1925

Dear Scott:

This is not a letter, but a sort of bulletin. All the corrections came safely, I am sure, and all have been rightly made. I had to make two little changes: there are no tides in Lake Superior, as Rex Lardner told me and I have verified the fact, and this made it necessary to attribute the danger of the yacht to wind. The other change was where in describing the dead Gatsby in the swimming pool, you speak of the “leg of transept”. I ought to have caught this on the galleys. The transept is the cross formation in a church and surely you could not figuratively have referred to this. I think you must have been thinking of a transit, which is an engineer's instrument. It is really not like compasses, for it rests upon a tripod, but I think the use of the word transit would be psychologically correct in giving the impression of the circle being drawn. I think this must be what you meant, but anyway it could not have been transept. You will now have page proofs and you ought to deal with these two points and make them as you want them, and I will have them changed in the next printing. Otherwise we found only typographical errors of a perfectly obvious kind. I think the book is a wonder and Gatsby is now most appealing, effective and real, and yet altogether original. We publish on April 10th.³²

I am awfully sorry that Zelda has been ill, and painfully. I hope it is all over now. Pain is regarded altogether too likely in this world. It is about the worst thing there is.

I am sending you a wonderful story by Ring Lardner in Liberty. We worked his “Young Immigrunts” and “Symptoms of Being 35” into the set.

As ever,

Notes:

32. Fitzgerald cabled, on March 19th, “Crazy about title 'Under the Red[,] White and Blue.' What would delay be[?]” Perkins cabled back, on the same day, “Advertised and sold for April tenth publication. Change suggested would mean some weeks delay, very great psychological damage. Think irony is far more effective under less leading title. Everyone likes present title. Urge we keep it.” On March 22nd, Fitzgerald, by telegram "YOURE RIGHT" agreed.

130. To Fitzgerald

March 25, 1925

Dear Scott:

I'm sending the French lady* a set of page proof,—the set that Ring had over the week end. He liked the book greatly—so he said yesterday when seated in my box stall before an artist who was sketching him—and is writing you about it. He said also that he expected to have enough stories for a fall book and if he does he will have a much greater success, I think, than with the first. He is now almost as healthy looking as on that night at your house in West Egg when he had not smoked or drunk for a long time.

Didn't I send you “The Apple of the Eye”?* I don't know why not: I was mightily impressed by it—by its Hardy like inevitability—I really don't know much about Hardy and don't think Tess had the quality, but I mean what he is supposed to stand for. With the help of Ernest Boyd I came in touch with the author and although many people loathe him—largely on account of a sort of lispy, preciosity—an Oxford accent -I was not unfavorably affected at all;—and I could have got his next book if I had found any support. I missed you greatly then. (This is strictly confidential.)

As for your own book,—it is a magical book. I have not read it through again, but all your corrections I read in the context. All my criticisms vanished before them. I am sure that all corrections came, and both Dunn and Roger read the final page proof and compared it with the corrected proof. Can't you send us a new picture of yourself? The royalty report I enclose,—regretfully; but Gatsby ought to do much for his creator.

We had a fine party two nights ago at the Colums,—the Benets, and an extraordinary Irishman named Michael Monahan, about fifty, with the kind of a head that an Irish lion would have, if there were one. He was tight, and while everyone else sat, he stumped about on short, solid legs, collecting, refilling, distributing glasses, and reciting Byron, and various Irish poets. Eleanor Wylie is very decorative, and a lively and interesting companion.

I hope Zelda is well.

As ever,

Notes:

* Irene de Morsier, who was to translate Gatsby into French.

*A novel by Glenway Wescott. Fitzgerald had asked the Retail Department of Scribners to send him a copy.

131. To Perkins

Hotel Tiberio, Capri

[March 31, 1925]

Dear Max:

As the day approaches my nervousness increases. Tomorrow is the 1st and your wire says the 10th. I'll be here until the 25th, probably later, so if the book prospers I'll expect some sort of cable before I leave for Paris. All letters that you write after 15th of April should be addressed to the Guaranty Trust Co. Paris, but if there's any dope in the first two or three days of publication I'd love a reassuring line here, even if the success doesn't justify a cable.

I enclose you a picture of a naked woman, which you may add to your celebrated pornographic collection from Sumatra, Transalvania and the Polynesian islands.

This place is full of fairies—one of them, a nice young man my own age, is a writer of promise and performance on the Aldous Huxley type. I like his books (his name is ___________) and suggested that I send some to you as you are shy on young English of recent years, but Knopf had signed him up three weeks before!

I think Tom Boyds book is excellent—the preface is faintly pretentious but the stories themselves are great. By the way I think my new collection will be called “Dear Money”. It ought to be awfully good and there will be no junk in it.

Yours in a Tremble

Will you have a copy of my book sent to Miss Willa Cather, care of Knopf.

When should my book of short stories be in?***

I had, or rather saw, a letter from my uncle who had seen a preliminary announcement of the book. He said: “It sounded as if it were very much like his others.”

This is only a vague impression of course but I wondered if we could think of some way to advertise it so that people who are perhaps weary of assertive jazz and society novels might not dismiss it as “just another book like his others.” I confess that today the problem baffles me—all I can think of is to say in general to avoid such phrases “a picture of New York life,” or “modern society”—though as that is exactly what the book is it's hard to avoid them. The trouble is so much superficial trash has sailed under those banners. Let me know what you think.

Notes:

* All the Sad Young Men.

Also Turnbull.

132. TO: Maxwell Perkins

1925

ALS, 5pp. Princeton University; Lefe In Letters.

En route to Paris

April 10th

Dear Max:

The book comes out today and I am overcome with fears and forebodings. Supposing women didn’t like the book because it has no important woman in it, and critics didn’t like it because it dealt with the rich and contained no peasants borrowed out of Tess in it and set to work in Idaho? Suppose it didn’t even wipe out my debt to you—why it will have to sell 20,000 copies even to do that! In fact all my confidence is gone—I wouldn’t tell you this except for the fact that by the this reaches you the worst will be known. I’m sick of the book myself—I wrote it over at least five times and I still feel that what should be the strong scene (in the Hotel) is hurried and ineffective. Also the last chapter, the burial, Gatsby’s father ect is faulty. Its too bad because the first five chapters and parts of the 7th and 8th are the best things I’ve ever done.

“The best since Paradise”. God! If you you knew how discouraging that was. That was what Ring said in his letter together with some very complementary remarks. In strictest confidence I’ll admit that I was disappointed in Haircut—in fact I thought it was pretty lousy stuff—the crazy boy as the instrument of providence is many hundreds of years old. However please don’t tell him I didn’t like it.

Now as to the changes I don’t think I’ll make any more for the present. Ring suggested the correction of certain errata—if you made the changes all right—if not let them go. Except on page 209 old dim La Salle Street Station should be Union old dim Union Station and should be changed in the second edition. Transit will do fine though of course I really meant compass. The page proofs arrived and seemed to be O.K. though I don’t know how the printer found his way through those 70,000 corrections. The cover (jacket) came too and is a delight. Zelda is mad about it (incidently she is quite well again.

When you get this letter address me % Guaranty Trust Co. 1 Rue Des Italennes, Paris.

Another thing—I’m convinced that Myers is all right but have him be sure and keep all such trite phrases as “Surely the book of the Spring!” out of the advertiseing. That one is my pet abomination. Also to use no quotations except those of unqualified and exceptionally entheusiastic praise from emminent individuals. Such phrases as

“Should be on everyone’s summer list”

Boston Transcript

“Not a dull moment. . . a thoroughly sound solid piece of work”

havn’t sold a copy of any book in three years. I thought your advertising for Ring was great. I’m sorry you didn’t get Wescotts new book. Several people have written me that The Apple of the Eye is the best novel of the year.

Life in New Cannan sounds more interesting than life in Plainfield. I’m sure anyhow that at least two critics Benet + Mary Column will have heard about the book. I’d like her to like it—Benet’s opinion is of no value whatsoever.

And thanks mightily for the $750.00 which swells my debt to over $6000.00.

When should my book of short stories be in?
Scott

P. S.
I had, or rather saw, a letter from my uncle who had seen a preliminary announcement of the book. He said:

“it sounded as if it were very much like his others.”

This is only a vague impression, of course, but I wondered if we could think of some way to advertise it so that people who are perhaps weary of assertive jazz and society novels might not dismiss it as “just another book like his others”. I confess that today the problem baffles me—all I can think of is to say in general to avoid such phrases as “a picture of New York life” or “modern society”—though as that is exactly what the book is its hard to avoid them. The trouble is so much superficial trash has sailed under those banners. Let me know what you think

Scott

Notes:

Lardner’s short story had appeared in the March 28, 1925 Liberty and would be collected in The Love Nest (1926).

Wallace Meyer of the Scribners advertising department.

William Rose Benet and Mary Colum.

$750.00 - Requested in a telegram on March 31st.

133. To Fitzgerald

April 20, 1925

Dear Scott:

I wired you today rather discouragingly in the matter of the sales and I could send no qualifications in a cable. A great many of the trade have been very skeptical. I cannot make out just why. But one point is the small number of pages in the book,—an old stock objection which I thought we had got beyond. To attempt to explain to them that the way of writing which you have chosen and which is bound to come more and more into practice is one where a vast amount is said by implication, and that therefore the book is as full as it would have been if written to much greater length by another method, is of course utterly futile. The small number of pages, however, did in the end lead a couple of big distributors to reduce their orders immensely at the very last minute. The sale is up to the public and that has not yet had time to reveal itself fully. On the other hand, we have had a very good review, a very conspicuous one, in the Times, and an excellent one also in the Tribune from Isabelle Patterson. William Rose Benet has announced preliminary to a review in the Saturday Review, that this is distinctly your best book. And the individuals whom I encounter like Gilbert Seldes (who will write also), Van Wyck Brooks, John Marquand, John Bishop, think this too. Marquand and Seldes were both quite wild about it. These people understand it fully, which even the Times and Tribune reviewers did not.

I will send you anything that has much significance by cable. I know fully how this period must try you: it must be very hard to endure, because it is hard enough for me to endure. I like the book so much myself and see so much in it that its recognition and success mean more to me than anything else in sight at the present time,—I mean in any department of interest, not only that of literature. But it does seem to me from the comments of many who yet feel its enchantment, that it is over the heads of more people than you would probably suppose.

In the course of this week when they have had time to accumulate, I will get together ads. and reviews and send them on. The situation has really not developed sufficiently yet to say anything decisive, but you can at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I shall watch it with the greatest anxiety imaginable in anyone but the author.

Yours,

134. To Perkins

14 rue de Tilsitt Paris, France (permanent address)

[circa April 22, 1925]

Dear Max:

I suppose you've sent the book to Collins. If not, please do, and let me know right away. If he won't take it because of its flop we might try Cape's.¹ I'm miserable at owing you all that money—if I'd taken the serial money I could at least have squared up with you.

I've had enthusiastic letters from Mencken and Wilson—the latter says he's reviewing it for that Chicago Tribune syndicate he writes for. I think all the reviews I've seen, except two, have been absolutely stupid and lousy. Someday they'll eat grass, by God! This thing, both the effort and the result, have hardened me and I think now that I'm much better than any of the young Americans without exception.

Hemingway is a fine, charming fellow and he appreciated your letter and the tone of it enormously. If Liveright doesn't please him he'll come to you, and he has a future. He's twenty-seven.

Bishop sent me The Apple of the Eye ² and it seemed pretty much the old stuff that D. H. Lawrence, Anderson, Suckow and Cather did long ago and Hardy before them. I don't think such peasantry exists in America—Ring is much closer to the truth. I suspect tragedy in the American countryside because all the people capable of it move to the big towns at twenty. All the rest is pathos. However maybe it's good, a lot of people seem to think so.

I will send All the Sad Young Men about June 1st or 10th. Perhaps the deferred press on Gatsby will help it but I think now there's no use even sending it to that crowd, Broun, F.P.A., Ruth Hale, etc. Incidentally my being over here and consequent delay in the proofs and review copies undoubtedly hurt the effect of the book's appearance. Thanks again for your kind letters and all you've done. Let me know about Collins.

Scott

Please let me know how many copies sold and whether the sale is now dead.

Notes:

¹ Jonathan Cape, the English publisher.

2 A novel by Glenway Wescott.

From Turnbull.

135. To Perkins

Marseille, en route to Paris

[ca. April 24, 1925]

Dear Max:

Your telegram* depressed me. I hope I'll find better news in Paris and am wiring you from Lyons. There's nothing to say until I hear more. If the book fails commercially it will be from one of two reasons or both.

1st The title is only fair, rather bad than good.

2nd And most important—the book contains no important woman character and women controll the fiction market at present. I don't think the unhappy end matters particularly.

It will have to sell 20,000 copies to wipe out my debt to you. I think it will do that all right—but my hope was it would do 75,000. This week will tell.

Zelda is well, or almost but the expense of her illness and of bringing this wretched little car of ours back to France which has to be done, by law, has wiped out what small progress I'd made in getting straight financially.

In all events I have a book of good stories for the fall. Now I shall write some cheap ones until I've accumulated enough for my my next novel. When that is finished and published I'll wait and see. If it will support me with no more intervals of trash I'll go on as a novelist. If not I'm going to quit, come home, go to Hollywood and learn the movie business. I can't reduce our scale of living and I can't stand this financial insecurity. Anyhow there's no point in trying to be an artist if you can't do your best. I had my chance back in 1920 to start my life on a sensible scale and I lost it and so I'll have to pay the penalty. Then perhaps at 40 I can start writing again without this constant worry and interruption.

Yours in great depression

P.S. Let me know about Ring's book. Did I tell you I thought “Haircut” was mediocre?

P.S. (2) Please refer any movie offers to Reynolds.

Notes:

* Perkins' telegram, dated April 20th, had read, “Sales situation doubtful. Excellent reviews.”

Also Turnbull.

136. To Fitzgerald

April 25, 1925

Dear Scott:

I sent you just now a rather meaningless cable.* The fact is that not enough time has passed to disclose much. I have been very keenly conscious of your inevitable anxiety—which I have myself largely shared I can tell you, on account of the early appearance of the enclosed review by Ruth Hale and the one from the World by a man of no importance^33—and I would have sent you a word, and tried to think of what I could say in a cable. But in reality there was nothing decisive to say. I enclose a lot of other reviews and while most of the reviewers seem rather to fumble with the book, as if they did not fully understand it, they praise it very highly, and better still, they all show a kind of excitement which they caught from its vitality. Of course none of the best people have reviewed yet and I have no doubt at all of their enthusiasm so that in the matter of reviews the situation will keep improving;—for people who will be heard from are those who will really understand and grasp it, and so far nobody has done that.

As to the sales situation, we have met a curious opposition in the trade.—Of course based upon an opposition they assume to exist in the public. But a very encouraging indication comes from Womrath in whose stores the popular reaction is first felt:—he ordered at first, 100. The next week he ordered in 25s, daily. In the next two days he ordered 100s and yesterday he ordered 200. Whenever I see anything of real significance, I will send you a wire.

At any rate, one thing I think, we can be sure of: that when the tumult and shouting of the rabble of reviewers and gossipers dies, “The Great Gatsby” will stand out as a very extraordinary book. Perhaps it's not perfect! It is one thing to ride a sleepy cob of a talent to perfection and quite another to master a wild young thoroughbred of a talent. That's the way I see it.

Yours,

P.S. Molly Colum is to do a review for the New Republic and Benet for the Saturday Review.

Notes:

* It read, “Developments favorable. Reviews excellent. Must still wait.” The telegram was dated April 24th.

33. Ruth Hale's review, in the April 18th Brooklyn Eagle, found not “one chemical trace of magic, life, irony, romance or mysticism in all of 'The Great Gatsby.' “ The unsigned brief review in the New York World on April 12th was headlined, “F. Scott Fitzgerald's Latest a Dud.”

137. To Perkins

Guaranty Trust Co. Paris,

May 1st [1925]

Dear Max:

There's no use for indignation against the long suffering public when even a critic who likes the book fails to be fundamentally held—that is Stallings who has written the only intelligent review so far*—but its been depressing to find how quick one is forgotten, especially unless you repeat yourself ad nauseam. Most of the reviewers floundered around in a piece of work that obviously they completely failed to understand and tried to give it reviews that committed them neither pro or con until some one of culture had spoken. Of course I've only seen the Times and the Tribune—and, thank God, Stallings, for I had begun to believe no one was even glancing at the book.

Now about money. With the $1000. for which I asked yesterday (and thank you for your answer)³⁴ I owe you about $1200, or if the book sells 12,000 about $4000.000. If there is a movie right I will pay you all I owe—if not, all I can offer you at present is an excellent collection of stories for the fall entitled “All the Sad Young Men”—none of the stories appeared in the Post—I think Absolution is the only one you've read. Thank you for all your advertising and all the advances and all your good will. When I get ahead again on trash I'll begin the new novel.

I'm glad Ring is getting such a press and hope he's selling. The boob critics have taken him up and always take a poke at the “intelligentia” who patronize him. But the “intelligentsia”—Seldes & Mencken discovered him (after the people) while the boob critics let The Big Town and Gullibles Travels come out in dead silence. Let me know the sale.

A profound bow to my successor Arlen*—when I read The London Venture I knew he was a comer and was going to tell you but I saw the next day that Doran had already published Piracy. That was just before I left New York.

Which reminds me—it seems terrible that all the best of the young Englishmen have been snapped up. I tried to get Louis Golding for you in Capri but he'd signed a rotten cash contract with Knopf a week before. Also they've just signed Brett Young who might have been had any time in the last two years and who'll be a big seller and now I see The Constant Nymph* is taken. Wouldn't it pay you to have some live young Londoner watch the new English books. I imagine Kingsley*** gets his information a month late out of the London Times Supplement. This sounds ill-natured but I am really sorry to see you loose so many new talents when they are appearing as fast now in England as they did here in 1920. Liverite** has got Hemminway! How about Radiguet?

We have taken an appartment here from May 12th to Jan. 12th, eight months, where I shall do my best. What a six months in Italy! Christ!

I'm hoping that by some miracle the book will go up to 23,000 and wipe off my debt to you. I haven't been out of debt now for three years and with the years it grows heavy on my ageing back. The happiest thought I have is of my new novel—it is something really NEW in form, idea, structure—the model for the age that Joyce and Stien are searching for, that Conrad didn't find.

Write me any news—I havn't had or written [a] line since publication except a pleasant but not thrilling note from the perennial youth, Johnny Weaver. I am bulging with plans for—however that's later. Was Rings skit which was in Mencken's American Language incorporated into What of It? If not it should have been—its one of his best shorter things. And doesn't it contain his famous world's series articles about Ellis Lardners coat? If not they'd be a nucleous for another book of nonsense. Also his day at home in imitation of F.P.A.'s diary.

My adress after the 12th is 14 Rue de Tilsitt. If you have my Three Lives by Gertrude Stien don't let anybody steal it.

Many thanks to Mr. Scribner and to all the others and to you for all you've done for me and for the book.

The jacket was a hit anyhow.

P.S. And Tom Boyd's Book?

Notes:

* Laurence Stallings' review appeared in the April 22nd issue of the New York World.

* Novelist Michael Arlen.

+ By Margaret Kennedy.

** American publisher Horace Liveright.

*** Charles Kingsley, Scribners' London representative.

34. On April 29th, Fitzgerald had cabled, “If you could please deposit one thousand it will be absolutely the last.” On the same day, Charles Scribner wired back, “Gladly done Scott.”

Also Turnbull.

138. To Fitzgerald

May 9, 1925

Dear Scott:

I was delighted to get your letter of May first. Now I will have a much better week end. I had been fancying you in the depths of dispair—and although I myself did not believe it was time to be anywhere near that, I could not cable you any actual evidence to dispel it. The present sale is about 12,000 which means that the original distribution is about overcome, and now is the time which is significant. But at all events you are going to get appreciation. Stallings' review was marred for me chiefly by his unjustifiable comments on the other books. But the Post review you will see is good and I know young Shenton understood the book in full,—although he will appear in the Record which does not count for much. But we will probably be able to spread his opinion about. Hergesheimer's comments you will have received and he said he would do all he could. In fact, I think so far as recognition goes, the end will be as it should be, and your position will have greatly advanced, in the eyes of the discriminating public anyway.

I am so glad you are going to do the other novel, and that you do not again refer to Hollywood. As for your debt to us, if there is any left, for Heaven's sake don't let that wear on you. If we wanted to be utterly hard-boiled we could look upon it as a good investment. I know you do not like to be in debt, but I mean don't let the idea of it, so far as we are concerned, prey on your mind.

I think your title is excellent for the stories. Are you going to send them over, or will you tell me how I can collect them? Has Reynolds got them? If I can get any time over this week end, I will write you at length. I am sorry all the letters I have written—although I do not know that they would have been of any help—have failed to get to you. I suppose they will gradually come upon you in Paris.

It is too bad about Hemingway. I had an extremely nice letter from him. I fully appreciate what you say about the English. It is a hard matter to handle. But there is one thing—they are absolutely cold-blooded about changing publishers over here, and always have been. See how Wells has scented out the big advances from one house to another.

The pieces you speak of are not in Ring's book. It is composed largely of what I could pick out from his syndicate articles with his approval. I sent you a copy and it also will catch up with you. His book has sold something over 5,000 copies and is apparently just getting under way. We greatly hope to bring out a volume of his stories this fall. He has written five and must write about nine. Tom Boyd's “Samuel Drummond” is a splendid piece of work. I will describe it to you when I write.

There were two Post reviews of Gatsby and both had great merit, but I meant chiefly the one by Herschel Brickell.

…

Yours,

139. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tillsit Paris (Permanent adress)

[ca. May 22, 1925]

Dear Max:

I suppose you've sent the book to Collins.* If not please do and let me know right away. If he won't take it because of its flop we might try Capes.^ I'm miserable at owing you all that money—if I'd taken the serial money I could at least have squared up with you.

I've had entheusiastic letters from Mencken and Wilson—the latter says he's reviewing it for that Chicago Tribune syndicate he writes for. I think all the reviews I've seen, except two, have been absolutely stupid and lowsy. Some day they'll eat grass, by God! This thing, both the effort and the result have hardened me and I think now that I'm much better than any of the young Americans without exception.

Hemminway is a fine, charming fellow and he appreciated your letter and the tone of it enormously. If Liveright doesn't please him he'll come to you, and he has a future. He's 27.

Bishop sent me The Apple of the Eye and it seemed pretty much the old stuff that D. H. Lawrence, Anderson, Suckow and Cather did long ago and Hardy before them. I don't think such a peasantry exists in America—Ring is much closer to the truth. I suspect tragedy in the American countryside because all the people capable of it move to the big towns at twenty. All the rest is pathos. However maybe its good; a lot of people seem to think so.

I will send All The Sad Young Men about June 1st or 10th. Perhaps the deferred press on Gatsby will help it but I think now there's no use even sending it to that crowd Broun, F.P.A., Ruth Hale ect. Incidently my being over here & the consequent delay in the proofs and review copies undoubtedly hurt the effect of the books appearance. Thanks again for your kind letters and all you've done. Let me know about Collins.

Please let me know how many copies sold & whether the sale is now dead.

Notes:

* William Collins had been the English publisher of Fitzgerald's first two novels and first two short story collections.

^ Jonathan Cape, English publisher.

Chatto & Windus published The Great Gatsby in England (1926).

Heywood Broun, influential New York newspaper columnist; his wife, journalist Ruth Hale, gave The Great Gatsby a bad review in the Brooklyn Eagle.

140. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt, Paris, France

[June 1, 1925]

Dear Max:

This is the second letter I've written you today—I tore my first up when the letter in longhand from New Cannan telling me about Liveright arrived. I'm wiring you today as to that rumor—but also it makes it nessessary to tell you something I didn't intend to tell you.³⁵

Yesterday arrived a letter from T. R. Smith * asking for my next book—saying nothing against the Scribners but just asking for it: “if I happened to be dissatisfied they would be delighted” ect. ect. I answered at once saying that you were one of my closest friends and that my relations with Scribners had always been so cordial and pleasant that I wouldn't think of changeing publishers. That letter will reach him at about the time this reaches you. I have never had any other communication of any sort with Liveright or any other publisher except the very definate and explicit letter with which I answered their letter yesterday.

So much for that rumor. I am both angry at Tom*** who must have been in some way responsible for starting it and depressed at the fact that you could have believed it enough to mention it to me. Rumors start like this.

Smith: (a born gossip) “I hear Fitzgerald's book isn't selling. I think we can get him, as he's probably blaming it on Scribners.

The Next Man: It seems Fitzgerald is disatisfied with Scribners and Liveright is after him.

The Third Man: I hear Fitzgerald has gone over to Liverite

***

Now, Max, I have told you many times that you are my publisher, and permanently, as far as one can fling about the word in this too mutable world. If you like I will sign a contract with you immediately for my next three books. The idea of leaving you has never for one single moment entered my head.

First. Tho, as a younger man, I have not always been in sympathy with some of your publishing ideas, (which were evolved under the pre-movie, pre-high-literacy-rate conditions of twenty to forty years ago), the personality of you and of Mr. Scribner, the tremendous squareness, courtesy, generosity and open-mindedness I have always met there and, if I may say it, the special consideration you have all had for me and my work, much more than make up the difference.

Second You know my own idea on the advantages of one publisher who backs you and not your work. And my feeling about uniform books in the matter of house and binding.

Third The curious advantage to a rather radical writer in being published by what is now an ultra-conservative house.

Fourth (and least need of saying) Do you think I could treat with another publisher while I have a debt, which is both actual and a matter of honor, of over $3000.00?

********

If Mr. Scribner has heard this rumor please show him this letter. So much for Mr. Liveright & Co.

********

Your letters are catching up with me. Curtis in Town & Country & Van Vetchten in The Nation pleased me.** The personal letters: Cabell, Wilson, Van Wyke Brooks ect. have been the best of all. Among people over here Ernest Ernest Hemminway + Gertrude Stien are quite entheusiastic. Except for Rascoe it has been, critically only a clean sweep—and his little tribute is a result of our having snubbed his quite common and cheaply promiscuous wife.

Ring's book has been a terrible disappointment to everyone here. He didn't even bother to cut out the connecting tags at the end of his travel articles and each of the five plays contain the same joke about “his mother—afterwards his wife.” I shouldn't press him about his new collection, if I were you, because if you just took the first nine stories he writes, they couldn't be up to the others and you know how reviewers are quick to turn on anyone in whom they have believed and who now disappoints them. Of course I've only read Haircut and I may be wrong. I do want him to believe in his work & not have any blows to take away his confidence. The reviews I have seen of What of it? were sorry imitations of Seldes stuff and all of them went out of their way to stab Seldes in the back. God, cheap reviewers are low swine—but one must live.

As I write word has just come by cable that Brady has made an offer for the dramatic rights of Gatsby, with Owen Davis, king of proffessional play doctors, to do the dramatization. I am, needless to say, accepting, but please keep it confidential until the actual contract is signed.

*****

As you know, despite my admiration for Through the Wheat, I haven't an enormous faith in Tom Boyd either as a personality or an artist—as I have, say, in E. E. Cummings and Hemminway. His ignorance, his presumptious intolerance and his careless grossness which he cultivates for vitality as a man might nurse along a dandelion with the hope that it would turn out to be an onion, have always annoyed me. Like Rascoe he has never been known to refuse an invitation from his social superiors—or to fail to pan them with all the venom of a James-Oliver-Curwood-He-Man when no invitations were forthcoming.

All this is preparatory to saying that his new book sounds utterly lowsy—Shiela Kaye-Smith has used the stuff about the farmer having girls instead of boys and being broken up about it. The characters you mention have every one, become stock-props in the last ten years—“Christy, the quaint old hired man” after a season in such stuff as Owen Davis' Ice Bound must be almost ready for the burlesque circuit.

History of the Simple Inarticulate Farmer and his Hired Man Christy

(Both guaranteed to be utterly full of the Feel of the Soil)

1st Period

1855—English Peasant discovered by Geo. Elliot in Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner ect.

1888—Given intellectual interpretation by Hardy in Jude and Tess

1890—Found in France by Zola in Germinal

1900—Crowds of Scandanavians, Hamsun, Bojer ect, tear him bodily from the Russian, and after a peep at Hardy, Hamlin Garland finds him in the middle west.

*********

Most of that, however, was literature. It was something pulled by the individual out of life and only partly with the aid of models in other literatures.

2nd Period

1914—Shiela Kaye-Smith frankly imitates Hardy, produces two good books & then begins to imitate herself.

1915—Brett Young discovers him in the coal country

1916—Robert Frost discovers him in New England

1917—Sherwood Anderson discovers him in Ohio

1918—Willa Cather turns him Swede

1920—Eugene O'Niell puts him on the boards in Different & Beyond [the] Horizon

1922—Ruth Suckow gets in before the door closes

These people were all good second raters (except Anderson) Each of them brought something to the business—but they exhausted the ground, the type was set. All was over.

******

3rd Period

The Cheapskates discover him—Bad critics and novelists ect.

1923 Homer Croy writes West of the Water tower

1924 Edna Ferber turns from her flip jewish saleswoman for a strong silent earthy carrot grower and—the Great Soul of Charley Towne thrills to her passionately. Real and Earthy Struggle

1924 Ice Bound by the author of Nellie the Beautiful Cloak Model wins Pulitzer Prize

The Able Mcgloughlins wins $10,000 prize & is forgotten the following wk.

1925 The Apple of the Eye pronounced a masterpiece

1926—TOM, BOYD, WRITES, NOVEL, ABOUT, INARTICULATE, FARMER WHO, IS, CLOSE, TO SOIL, AND, HIS, HIRED, MAN CHRISTY!
“STRONG! VITAL! REAL!”

As a matter of fact the American peasant as “real” material scarcely exists. He is scarcely 10% of the population, isn't bound to the soil at all as the English & Russian peasants were—and, if [he] has any sensitivity whatsoever (except a most sentimental conception of himself, which our writers persistently shut their eyes to) he is in the towns before he's twenty. Either Lewis, Lardner and myself have been badly fooled, or else using him as typical American material is simply a stubborn seeking for the static in a world that for almost a hundred years has simply not been static. Isn't it a 4th rate imagination that can find only that old property farmer in all this amazing time and land? And anything that ten people a year can do well enough to pass muster has become so easy that it isn't worth the doing.

I can not disassociate a man from his work.—That this Wescott (who is an effeminate Oxford fairy) and Tom Boyd and Burton Rascoe (whose real ambition is to lock themselves into a stinking little appartment and screw each others’ wives) are going to tell us mere superficial “craftsmen” like Hergeshiemer, Wharton, Tarkington and me about the Great Beautiful Appreciation they have of the Great Beautiful life of the Manure Widder—rather turns my stomach. The real people like Gertrude Stien (with whom I've talked) and Conrad (see his essay on James) have a respect for people whose materials may not touch theirs at a single point. But the fourth rate & highly derivative people like Tom are loud in their outcry against any subject matter that doesn't come out of the old, old bag which their betters have used and thrown away.

For example there is an impression among the thoughtless (including Tom) that Sherwood Anderson is a man of profound ideas who is “handicapped by his inarticulateness”. As a matter of fact Anderson is a man of practically no ideas—but he is one of the very best and finest writers in the English language today. God, he can write! Tom could never get such rythms in his life as there are on the pages of Winesburg, Ohio—. Simple! The words on the lips of critics makes me hilarious: Anderson's style is about as simple as an engine room full of dynamoes. But Tom flatters himself that he can sit down for five months and by dressing up a few heart throbs in overalls produce literature.

It amazes me, Max, to see you with your discernment and your fine intelligence, fall for that whole complicated fake. Your chief critical flaw is to confuse mere earnestness with artistic sincerity. On two of Ring's jackets have been statements that he never wrote a dishonest word (maybe it's one jacket). But Ring and many of the very greatest artists have written thousands of words in plays, poems and novels which weren't even faintly sincere or ernest and were yet artisticly sincere. The latter term is not a synonym for plodding ernestness. Zola did not say the last word about literature; nor the first.

I append all the data on my fall book, and in closing I apologize for seeming impassioned about Tom and his work when niether the man or what he writes has ever been personally inimical to me. He is simply the scapegoat for the mood Rascoe has put me in and, tho I mean every word of it, I probably wouldn't have wasted all this paper on a book that won't sell & will be dead in a month & an imitative school that will be dead by its own weight in a year or so, if the news about Liveright hadn't come on top of the Rascoe review and ruined my disposition. Good luck to Drummond.* I'm sure one or two critics will mistake it for profound stuff—maybe even Mencken who has a weakness in that direction. But I think you should look closer.

With best wishes as always, Max,

Your Friend

DATA ON NEW FITZGERALD BOOK.

Title ALL THE SAD YOUNG MEN
(9 short stories)

Print list of previous books as before with addition of this title under “Stories”. Binding uniform with others.

Jacket plain (,as you suggest,) with text instead of picture

Dedication: To Ring and Ellis Lardner

The Stories (now under revision) will reach you by July 15th. No proofs need be sent over here.

It will be fully up to the other collections and will contain only one of those Post stories that people were so snooty about. (You have read only one of the stories (“Absolution”)—all the others were so good that I had difficulty in selling them, except two.

They are, in approximate order to be used in book:

1	“The Rich Boy” (just finished—serious story and very good)	13,000	words
2	“Absolution” (from Mercury)	6,500	“
3	“Winter Dreams” (a sort of 1st draft of the Gatsby idea from Metropolitan 1923)	9,000	“
4	“Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of Wales” (fantastic jazz, so good that Lorimer and Long* refused it—from McCall's)	5,000	“
5	“The Baby Party” (from Hearst's—a fine story)	5,000	“
6	“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar” (from Hearst's. Exuberant jazz in my early manner)	8,000	“
7	“The Sensible Thing” (story about Zelda & me. All true. From Liberty)	5,000	“
8	“Hot and Cold Blood” (good story, from Hearst's)	6,000	“
9	“Gretchen's Forty Winks” (From Post. Farrar, Christian Gauss and Jesse Williams thought it my best. It isn't.)	7,000	“
Total—about		64,500
	(And possibly one other short one)

This title is because seven stories deal with young men of my generation in rather unhappy moods. The ones to mention on the outside wrap are the 1st five or the 1st three stories.

********

Rather not use advertising appropriation in Times—people who read Times Book Review won't be interested in me. Recommend Mercury, the F. P. A. page of the World, Literary Review and Fanny Bucher* page of Chicago Tribune.

No blurbs in ad. as I think the blurb doesn't help any more. Suggestion.

Charles Scribners Sons
Announce a new book of short stories
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Advertising Notes

Suggested line for jacket: “Show transition from his early exuberant stories of youth which created a new type of American girl and the later and more serious mood which produced The Great Gatsby and marked him as one of the half dozen masters of English prose now writing in America... What other writer has shown such unexpected developments, such versatility, changes of pace”

ect—ect—ect—I think that, toned down as you see fit, is the general line. Don't say “Fitzgerald has done it!” & then in the next sentence that I am an artist. People who are interested in artists aren't interested in people who have “done it.” Both are O.K. but don't belong in the same ad. This is an author's quibble. All authors have one quibble.

However, you have always done well by me (Except for Black's memorable execretion in the Allumni Weekly; do you remember “Make it a Fitzgerald Christmas! “) and I leave it to you. If 100,000 copies are not sold I shall shift to Mitchell Kennerley.

By the way what has become of Black? I hear he has written a very original and profound novel. It is said to be about an inarticulate farmer and his struggles with the “soil” and his sexual waverings between his inarticulate wife and an inarticulate sheep. He finally chooses his old pioneering grandmother as the most inarticulate of all but finds her in bed with none other than our old friend THE HIRED MAN CHRISTY!

CHRISTY HAD DONE IT!

[In 1962 Fitzgerald's famous letter to Perkins was sold at auction at Chrystie's (not old man Christy's) for £7000.] *

Notes:

* An editor at Boni & Liveright, publishers.

*** Thomas Boyd

** Two reviews of The Great Gatsby.

* Samuel Drummond, Thomas A. Boyd's new novel

*George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, and Ray Long, editor of Hearst's International.

* Fanny Butcher, the regular book reviewer of the Chicago Tribune.

John Black of the advertising department at Scribners.

* This postscript appears in Fitzgerald's handwriting.

35. This is a reference apparently to a rumor that Fitzgerald was leaving Scribners and joining Boni & Liveright. Perkins' “letter in longhand” does not survive. Fitzgerald's wire, dated June 1st, read, “Liveright rumor absurd.” Perkins replied by telegram on June 10th: “Grateful for previous cable.”

Also Turnbull.

141. To Fitzgerald

June 13, 1925

Dear Scott:

That was a great letter, as good as a cocktail. But in this book of Tom's there isn't anything of the peasant at all,—but of the American farmer as he unquestionably did exist at the time of the Civil War, and I myself have seen remnants of his race in Vermont—played with somewhat degenerated sons of it as a boy. It seems true to me.—By the way when I use the word sincere in connection with a piece of writing I mean artistically sincere. You are as bad as Mencken in taking me up on that. I should think anyone would understand that word applied to literature meant that.

I infer that the manuscript is on the way—I certainly hope it is and I will write you all the details about it when it comes,—how we plan it and everything else. I shall also supervise everything in connection with it myself.

As to the rumor.—The one who gave it me was Molly Colum and I immediately denied it altogether, but she came back with such positiveness that I wanted you to deny it. I did barely entertain the idea of its truth but only on the theory that you have been so cast down and harrassed about money that you had accepted some very large offer. This passed through my mind as a possibility but even that would not have happened if everything else had not seemed to be going wrong at the time,—I mean in personal affairs as well, Louis, etc. I do not believe Tom Smith was at fault anyhow. It was someone else in the office that told Molly.

I hope I will be able to write you in the next few days as there are a log [lot] of points in your letter that I want to speak of. But there is one thing—I would not ever ask you to sign any permanent contract for the simple reason that it might be right for you sometime to change publishers, and while this would be a tragedy to me, I should not be so small as to stand in the way on personal grounds.

Yours,

P.S......

The sale is about 14,000. It goes ahead steadily, that is all.

142. To Fitzgerald

June 26, 1925

Dear Scott:

…

I cabled that Gatsby had gone to 15,000,—it is still some 50 or 60 copies short unless it has caught up today, but of course it will very soon exceed 15,000. I enclose herewith Mencken's review in the Mercury. He has spoken admirably for the book and even more highly verbally than in print, but I really do not think that he fully understood some elements in it, for if he had he would not keep speaking of its deficiencies as a story.

…

All this about T.B.* I had meant to discuss, but what would be the use? Time will tell the story. I quite agree with your doctrine that a man's level as a writer is set by his own level as an individual,—but it is mighty hard to gauge people's levels even in that respect. And some mighty fine men have done some dirty tricks. How about that affair of Shakespeare's recorded in “Tales of the Jazz Age”? I do not feel quite right as a son of the “Puritan stock” in arguing this side of the case, but then I am also the son of a long line of lawyers.

Ring says you are coming home soon. I wish to thunder you would. ...

My warmest regards to Zelda. Tell her I exhibited that picture of her daughter in the altogether to all of mine. She was vastly admired.

Yours,

Notes:

* Thomas A. Boyd.

143. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt Paris, France

[ca. July 8, 1925]

Dear Max:

This is another one of those letters with a thousand details in them, so I'll number the details & thus feel I'm getting them out of the way.

(1.) Will you have an account (bi-yearly statement) sent me as soon as you can. I don't know how much I owe you but it must be between 3 and 4 thousand dollars. I want to see how much chance All The Sad Young Men has of making up this difference. Thanks many times for the 700.00. It will enable me to go ahead next month with Our Type* which is getting shaped up both in paper and in my head. I'd rather not tell about it just yet.

(2) Is Gatsby to be published in England. I'm awfully anxious to have it published there. If Collins won't have it can't you try Jonathan Cape? Do let me know about this.

(3) Will you tell me the figures on Ring's books? Also on Through the Wheat. I re-read the latter the other day & think its marvellous. Together with the Enormous Room and, I think, Gatsby, its much the best thing that has come out of American fiction since the war. I exclude Anderson because since reading Three Lives and his silly autobiography my feeling about him has entirely changed. He is a short story writer only.

(4) I spent $48.00 having a sketch of me done by Ivan Opfer.* It was lousy and he says he'll try another. If its no good I'll send a photo. The stories for the book leave here day after tomorrow.

(5) I think the number of Americans in Europe has hurt the book market. Gatsby is the last principle book of mine that I want to publish in the spring. I believe that from now on fall will be much the best season.

(6) I'm sorry about that outburst at Tom [Boyd]. But I am among those who suffer from the preoccupation of literary America with the drab as subject matter. Seldes points this out in a great review of Gatsby for the London Criterion. Also he says “Fitzgerald has certainly the best chance at present of becoming our finest artist in fiction”. Quite a bit from Gilbert who only likes Ring, Edith Wharton[,] Joyce and Charlie Chaplin. Please get Myer** to put it on the cover of the new book and delete the man who says I “deserve the huzza's of those who want to further a worthy American Literature.” Perhaps I deserve their huzzas but I'd rather they'd express their appreciation in some less boisterous way.

(7.) I'm sending back the questionairre.++

(8) I suppose that by now Gatsby is over 18,000. I hope to God it reaches 20,000. It sounds so much better. Shane Leslie thought it was fine.

No news, Max. I was drinking hard in May but for the last month I've been working like a dog. I still think Count Orget's Ball by Radiguet would sell like wildfire. If I had the time I'd translate it myself.

Notes:

* The title Fitzgerald was then using for his new novel in progress.

^ Perkins, on June 26th, had requested a drawing of the author for the jacket of All the Sad Young Men.

** Wallace Meyer, advertising manager and later editor at Scribners.

++ On June 26th, Perkins had sent Fitzgerald a list of questions that an interviewer had submitted.

Also Turnbull, there date is listed as “circa July 1”.

144. To Fitzgerald

July 9, 1925

Dear Scott:

I wired you Tuesday to say that “The Great Gatsby” was now 16,000. It is at all events selling persistently. In that telegram I said “deposited” which referred to the three hundred and fifty. I have just wired you about the seven hundred. If this puts you in a position to go straight ahead with a new novel, we are certainly mighty glad to send it. A new novel is what you ought to do as soon as you are able. I had heard from somebody who had seen somebody who had seen you in Paris, that you had written half of a new novel, but that I thought quite impossible;—but I know that you have thoroughly thought out this novel because you spoke of it even when you were in Capri. If you could give me some idea of what you are doing in it, just in the briefest way, I wish you would;—but merely as a matter of interest, and not at all if you think that talking about it in advance is dangerous. I know it does sometimes dull the edge for the writer to do this.

As ever,

145. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt. Paris, France

[ca. July 10, 1925]

Dear Max:

(1) I'm afraid in sending the book I forgot the dedication, which should read
TO RING AND ELLIS LARDNER

Will you see to this?

(2.) I've asked The Red Book to let you know the first possible date on “The Rich Boy”³⁶

(3.) I'm terribly sorry about the whooping cough but I'll have to admit it did give me a laugh.

(4.) Max, it amuses me when praise comes in on the “structure” of the book—because it was you who fixed up the structure, not me. And don't think I'm not grateful for all that sane and helpful advice about it.

(5) The novel has begun. I'd rather tell you nothing about it quite yet. No news. We had a great time in Antibes and got very brown & healthy. In case you don't place it its the penninsula between Cannes & Nice on the Rivierra where Napoeleon landed on his return from Elba.

As Ever

Notes:

36. The Redbook had accepted “The Rich Boy” and Scribners was concerned that the story should appear well in advance of its book publication in All the Sad Young Men. It eventually appeared in two parts in the January and February, 1926, issues, thus delaying the publication of the book until the Spring of 1926.

146. To Fitzgerald

July 14, 1925

Dear Scott:

I'll have this letter copied, for it's written on a hot, cindery day on a train to Philadelphia;—where I'm to see the editor of the Ladies Home Journal for a few minutes, and then rush back.

I'm delighted about the novel. Is the title “Our Type”? That's what the cable implied. Tell me all you want to about it, but no more. Two things have lately impressed me with the veracity of your vision: the beach we belong to over the Fourth of July, and the strange conglomeration of the human species—strange in variety of origin and shape—almost equal to your catalogue of names in “Gatsby”; and the Scopes trial:—the stadium, the in-rush of publicity seekers, the fantastic levity of almost all concerned—or rather who concern themselves—with the frequent pretense of high seriousness. Can anything be taken seriously today, here? What of the seriousness of the Gallileo, Savanarola, Luther affairs, if they had been filmed, radioed, front-paged the moment they “broke”? Scopes said, when arrested, he was bitterly unpopular in his town. Then days later the populace awoke to find the sun of national publicity had spot-lighted Dayton;—and realized Scopes had put them on the map.—Scopes unpopular no longer! Bryan says he will fundamentalize the Constitution and Edgar Lee Masters, whom I saw at the Colums on Sunday, says he speaks the truth;—that it's no more improbable than was prohibition. You know Struthers Burt said two years ago that we'd end in the U.S. with a religious civil war. And he meant it and I ridiculed it, and now it seems far less improbable:—he argued, the fundamentalists, etc. would fix upon us by political means, such regulatory legislation as would finally become utterly intolerable.

Scott, I won't argue with you; but what difference does it make that a story is similar in rough outline, to one that somebody else wrote? How many of the best stories of any day have not been told before?—You must have great skill in rapid reading. I'm as slow as an ox, and envious of that talent.

Molly Colum came over last night to read me the first four pages of a book on the principles of criticism. She calls it “Wide Eyes and Wings” which suggests her belief that criticism should be emotional; that literature should not be measured by fixed intellectual standards. I admired her mind already, but I was astonished: there were surely four fresh ideas set forth, and with absolute clarity.—And I've so often argued (like so many others) that woman was incapable of grasping abstractions.—But I'd gladly turn feminist with my multitude of girls.

Liveright has annexed Edgar Lee Masters and has sold to a new publisher his Modern Library. V.W.B.* was immensely pleased with your letter about the Henry James. He's writing now a life of Emerson, who has hitherto been only pietistically presented in biographies, and therefore misrepresented. VanWyck has illuminating ideas of him—an artist by instinct: how he revealed in his journals his way of interpreting figures of history by actual characters of the village of Concord:—he saw them as possessing the same component elements as for instance, Mohammed, Napoleon, etc. And how he hated the odor of sanctity which in his time clung to so many otherwise vital persons and things, even, he thought, impairing the value of the Bible,—de-vitalizing it. Now (in absolute confidence) I can get this book if V.W.B. can loose himself from Dutton who have not done rightly by him, but have a contract.

Well, here's Philadelphia, so-

As ever yours,

Notes:

* Van Wyck Brooks.

147. To Perkins

Antibes, Rivierra, Aug 28th [1925]

(Permanent Adress Paris as usual) Leaving here next week.

Dear Max:

I. Here's the stuff. I've been working over it for a month—especially this version of The Rich Boy. The Red Book hasn't yet published it but I have asked them to hurry & they should by November. Will ask Reynolds to inform you exactly.

II. You will notice that one story I included in my dummy Table of Contents that I sent you in July has been withdrawn, and another better one substituted. +

III. How about Chatto & Windus on Gatsby. Didn't they like it? Why not Capes? O.K. about syndicating Gatsby of course.³⁷

IV. Our Type is about several things, one of which is an intellectual murder on the Leopold-Loeb idea. Incidently it is about Zelda & me & the hysteria of last May & June in Paris. (Confidential)

V. Thanks for the terms of the contract & for all the advances.³⁸

VI. I will write you fully about everything from Paris.

VII. Let me know what you think of the 1st four stories. *

Notes:

+ Fitzgerald substituted “The Adjuster” for “Dice, Brass Knuckles and Guitar.”

* The letter breaks off here, unsigned.

37. Perkins had written, on August 6th, that “The Bell Syndicate ... is hot to syndicate 'The Great Gatsby'... What do you say?”

38. On July 27th, Perkins had sent Fitzgerald the contract for All the Sad Young Men, with the terms as they had been for Gatsby, despite Fitzgerald's request that the terms be adjusted, in Scribners interest.

148. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt Paris, France

[ca. September 10, 1925]

Dear Max: Several things have come up.

(1.) I thought Tom's book^ undistinguished in the extreme. It did not seem to me “modern” (in the best sense) but a conventional novel full of conventional types and situation—something not more than two or three dozen Americans can do. Its characters have no more reality than those in, say, Drums,** and it lacks the facinating subject matter of the latter. Nor has it any scene that compares with the march of the Revolutionary army in the last pages of Drums.

(2.) I was curious to know about Ring's & Tom's sales (in general terms)

(3) And most important. When your letter says Chatto and Windus can't bring out Gatsby until fall^^ does it mean the fall of 1926? That seems incredible but if it is true I certainly want to protest—in fact I'd rather it were offerred to Capes (Jonathan) or not published at all than brought out a year & half late. Many of the Englishmen whose opinion is most valuable have already read it. I see no reason why when Lewis & Hergeshiemer are published simultaeneously in England and America & reap the full harvest of the double publicity, my book must wait 18 months. ... I hope the Chatto & Windus arrangement isn't definate—if it is I wish you'd get Mr. Kingsley to try and change it. Why not Jonathan Capes. I can't tell you how strongly I feel about having it come out this spring at the latest. Do please let me know immediately—I noticed it wasn't on their fall list & then I read your letter over with dismay.³⁹

Collins never believed in me (He always wanted me to write “a long Offshore Pirate”) and I know my public in England is small—but I have had enough entheusiastic letters to know it exists.

(4) Reynolds tells me The Red Book can't publish The Rich Boy (2 parts) until their Jan. & Feb. issues. In that case why not bring All the Sad Y.M. out in February. It will assure it a big press—the book after a large critical success always gets loud yells from the small caliber men. Did you like The Rich Boy} And the others? The Rich Boy is the best.

(5) What sale Gatsby? 20,000 yet?

(6) Enclosed is something left out from MS.

(7) The novel is going to be great

As Ever Your Friend

Notes:

^^ Samuel Drummond by Thomas A. Boyd.

** A novel by James Boyd, published by Scribners in 1925.

++ This information was included in a Perkins letter of September 4th.

39. In a reply dated September 28th, Perkins explained, “I do not know whether Capes saw 'The Great Gatsby'. Your suggestion did not come to us until an arrangement had been made.”

149. To Fitzgerald

Oct. 6, 1925

Dear Scott:

I had your letter about “Gatsby” in England. It is not in the fall that they are to publish, but in the spring. This is certainly a pity, but Collins had the right to the first chance at the book and he was slow in deciding. He said in his letter: “With regard to 'The Great Gatsby', this has perplexed us all here. In a way it is the best book Scott Fitzgerald has done, and yet I think it is the one hardest to sell over here. I do not think the British public would make head or tail of it, and I know it would not sell. It is an awkward length too. We do not at all like to part with Scott Fitzgerald, but we feel very strongly that to publish 'The Great Gatsby' would be to reduce the number of his readers rather than to increase them. The point is, that the atmosphere of the book is extraordinarily foreign to the English reader, and he simply would not believe in it, and therefore I am regretfully returning it to you.”⁴⁰

“Gatsby” was then put before Duckworth and they came to the same conclusion. It then went to Chatto & Windus who took it. I can easily understand your liking for Cape because I also like him and like his books; but he is not in fact as strong a publisher as Chatto & Windus, and Mr. Scribner thinks you are much better off at present in their hands…

I have just begun to get the proofs of “All the Sad Young Men” and as soon as I have the first story complete I will write you about it and the other stories.

As ever yours,

Notes:

40. In a second letter on the subject, written early in October, Fitzgerald observed, “Gatsby is just the sort of book which the English say that Americans can't write…” In March, 1926, Perkins, sending Fitzgerald two reviews of the English edition, noted, “There is a dash of Gatsby in ever so many men just as there is a dash of Hamlet,” but he added, “there is so much in this book that is so utterly American” that a good comprehending review deserved “almost as much credit” as an utterly uncomprehending and bad one.

150. To Fitzgerald

14 rue de Tilsitt Paris, France

[circa October 6, 1925]

Dear Max:

Your letter of September 28th doesn't answer my question about Gatsby in England. Is there some reason why Chatto & Windus can't publish in the spring? —And if they believe in it so little that they'll defer it a year and a half wouldn't they be willing to hand it over to Cape? I hate to be a crabby old woman about this, Max, but it means a lot to me. Gatsby is just the sort of book which the English say that Americans can't write, which they praise Hergesheimer for almost writing; I know half a dozen influential people there who will go to bat for it right now and it seems to me that it should have a chance. I am further confused when your letter says “Chatto & Windus and other publishers admired it but they thought it too American in its scene to be understood in England.” Does that mean Chatto & Windus aren't going to publish it? I'm disgruntled and up-in-the-air about the whole thing.

Isn't Ernest Hemingway's book fine? ¹ Did you read the last story?

I'm having Reynolds send you 6 tickets to the opening of Gatsby if it gets to New York. Distribute them as you like and if you want more let him know.

I'm anxiously awaiting the figure on Gatsby (how many sold, I mean); also on Ring's reprints as I feel sort of responsible to you on that idea. If he'd have a little pep and interest he might have devoted enough care to What of It? to make it sell as well as The Illiterate Digest.

Who has the American rights to Paul Morand's Open All Night and Closed All Night? Guy Chapman publishes them in England. They're great—and would sell like wildfire. Isn't Anderson's new book lousy? ²

As ever,
Scott

Notes:

¹ In Our Time.

² Dark Laughter.

From Turnbull.

151. To Fitzgerald

Oct. 12, 1925

Dear Scott:

Here is the royalty report on “The Great Gatsby”. The sale is still a little short of twenty thousand copies, but except for that last three hundred, your indebtedness would have been only about $2700 which would have been soon wiped out with the appearance of “The Said [Sad] Young Men”. I believe you will soon be in a much better financial position. I think you are progressing splendidly,—the first three stories which I have read in “All the Sad Young Men” show this, even if “The Great Gatsby” had not. They have more breadth, these stories, particularly the first and third, * than those of earlier collections. In fact, it is remarkable that you have been able to make them so entertaining for the crowd, when they have so much significance.

Yours,

Notes:

* “The Rich Boy” and “The Baby Party.”

152. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt [Paris, France] [ca. October 20, 1925]

Dear Max:

Thanks for your letters of 6th, 7th, & 12th. I'm delighted that you like the 1st four stories. The reason I want to get proof on The Rich Boy is that the original of the hero wants something changed—something that would identify him.

I'm relieved that Gatsby is coming out this Spring in England.—your first letter implied the Fall of 1927! But I'm disappointed that its only reached 19,640 copies. I hoped that it had reached nearer 25,000.

I was interested in the figures on Tom Boyd & Ring⁴¹—needless to say I won't mention them, but I thought Through the Wheat had sold much more. Considering the success of “What Price Glory?” I don't understand it. And Points of Honor only 1545! I'm astonished, and appalled. I see the New Yorker and the Nation (or New Republic) mention Samuel Drummond favorably.

There is no news. The novel progresses slowly & carefully with much destroying & revision. If you hear anything about the Gatsby dramatization—cast, date, ect. do let me know.

I wired you yesterday for $100.00 which brings me up to $3171.66 again—depressing thought! Will I ever be square. The short stories probably won't sell 5,000

Somewhat Mournfully

P.S. Did the Gatsby syndication with Bell Syndicate fall through?

P.S. A year & 1/2 ago Knopf published a book (novel) by Ruth Suckow called Country People. So he didn't risk her short stories It didn't go. But Mencken & I & many others think her stories wonderful. They're in the Smart Set (years 1921, 1922, 1923) and the American Mercury (1924, 1925), just enough to make about an 80,000 word book. A great press assurred—she could be the American Katherine Mansfield. This fine book The Perrenial Bachelor by Miss Parrish* derives from her I think. (She's the best woman writer in American under 50)

Why not approach her? Knopf seems to be letting her ride. You could probably get the next novel if she isn't signed up & you tried the stories first. I think this is an A.1. tip.

Notes:

1924 play by Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson.

1925 collection of stories by Boyd.

British short-story writer.

* The Perennial Bachelor by Anne Parrish (1925).

41. On October 7th, Perkins had given Fitzgerald the current sales figures on Lardner's How to Write Short Stories (18,764) and What of It? (7,688) and Boyd's Through the Wheat (10,300) and Points of Honor (1,545). He also remarked, “This is perhaps the first time in history that a publishing house ever gave a statement of sales to anyone but the author without at least doubling it.”

153. To Fitzgerald

Nov. 25, 1925

Dear Scott:

The proofs of “The Sad Young Men” have come back and have gone to the printer and so the way is clear for publication. And I believe that these stories will make a new and strong impression.

I meant to have got some accounts of Princeton's wonderful football achievements to send you, but you seem very well in touch nowadays, and have probably read, in particular, of the magnificent victory at Yale. I had the unhappiness of seeing the Harvard-Princeton game, and although I thought Harvard was defeated more because they did not then play football, it was evident that Princeton had a most unusual team, and I thought they would beat Yale.—But Harvard gave satisfaction two weeks later by holding Yale back from a score throughout a game played almost altogether under the shade of her own goal posts.

I know Ruth Suckow is a person of great possibilities, but as soon as you spoke of her I noticed that a new book by her was announced by Alfred Knopf,—and our relations with Alfred Knopf are of an especially friendly sort so that he is one of the last publishers against whom we would want to work;—although if the situation had been as you thought, we could have acted in all fairness on your suggestion.

I am pinning great hopes on Sidney Howard who is writing a big novel which should be publishable next fall. “Drums” cannot be stopped. It is selling more rapidly this fall than it did in the spring.—I think his next novel will be much better for he told me not exactly the plot, but the general sort of scheme of it, and it is full of interest, although the interest is rather in the scene, background, etc., than in the characters. Sidney's play “Lucky Sam McCarver” which was not quite worked through to clarity, was taken off after about four weeks of houses that looked good, but were not sufficiently so. I am waiting with much curiosity to see what they do with “The Great Gatsby” in the production. As for the syndicate, I told them to go ahead and they apparently were preparing to do it with enthusiasm for the book itself.

It is an age since I have written you a letter, and there are a lot of personal things I wanted to tell you. Louise and I went up to Arthur Train's* on a house party the last two weeks in October and had an amusing time. Did you and Zelda get the copy of “The Knave of Hearts”?^ I came near asking you to go and interview a young French woman whom we are importing as governess, but we decided in the end to take a chance on her being suitable.

Wouldn't it be fun to get up a sort of burlesque on those dictionaries of biography—famous men, representative men, etc., etc.—for representation in which simple people will pay ten dollars or so, by persuading you and Ring and Benchley and Ernest Boyd and Donald Ogden Stuart, and old George Ade, etc., etc., etc., each to do a number of fictional biographies which hit off various types of people? And then to illustrate, make and bind the book in imitation of these volumes. The writers could satirize or burlesque as they pleased so they could be nearly nonsensical. This idea just occurred to me when a man came in in the idea of getting us to manufacture one of these books for him. He showed me some of the biographies and they were the most astonishing pieces of bunk, written in all solemnity.

As ever yours,

Notes:

* Arthur Train, an American novelist, short-story writer and criminologist, most famous as the creator of Ephraim Tutt, perhaps the most popular fictional lawyer. Scribners published many of his books.

^ A novel by Louise Saunders (Perkins), published by Scribners in 1925.

154. TO: Maxwell Perkins

ALS, 1 p. Princeton University

14 Rue de Tilsitt Paris, France

December 1st [1925]

Dear Max:

I have taken the liberty of arranging for a French translation of Gatsby. It is being done by Victor Llona who translated Ambrose Bierce + Willa Cather into French, and will be published by Kra, Grassi or The Nouvelle Revue Frangais who all stand very high here.¹

I am paying the translator

2000 francs ($80) on delivery of ms. to me.

1500 “ ($60) “ contract being signed by French publisher (he acts as agent)

And I am also agreeing to pay $80 toward the advertising, a total outlay of $220. Also I give him 20% after I have my outlay back on all copies sold up to 50,000 after which he gets 10%.

Please write me telling me what arrangement I should make with you to obtain French copyright + how much I shall owe you of the proceeds—if any. I have no idea of the usual proceedure—but as I am awfully anxious to have it done I have gone ahead, counting on your consent. The money, of course, I will pay myself.

The novel progresses slowly but brilliantly.²

I suggest somthing very simple like this

Scott Fitzgerald's new book
All the Sad Young Men
(containing THE RICH BOY)
CHAS. SCRIBNERS

for the announcement of the short stories. In my opinion the blurb has had its day.

Would Bridges be interested in Hemminways new short pieces

As Ever Scott

The Post have raised my regular price to $2500. a story. This is confidential.

Notes:

¹ Gatsby le magnifique (Paris: Kra, 1926).

² Fitzgerald was working on an early version of the novel that became Tender Is the Night.

155. To Fitzgerald

Dec. 17, 1925

Dear Scott:

I'm sending you for Christmas, or thereabouts, a book I've had especially bound;—for it is among the most original, beautiful, and terrible books of our time, and I want to do it what little honour I can by putting it in that dress into which great books eventually get themselves.—And you ought to have it in that form.

I had lunch yesterday with John Biggs who left his book,**—which Dunn once said had become a classic in this office without ever having been written. He asked for you, but I could tell him little except about “The Sad Young Men” and how notable it appeared to me to be and what depth and diversity the stories had;—so that taking them with “Gatsby” no one could say what you might yet do.

I ought to have sent you accounts of the football games which made pleasant reading for a Princetonian,—and that of Princeton vs. Yale, for everyone but a Yale man. But I note that you somehow keep in touch with things, unassisted by me; and for me to have sent you the story of Harvard vs. Princeton would have been too humiliating.—Enough to have had to sit it out! I thought also of sending you the strange story of “Red” Grange and his magic sphere—which the creator of Gatsby would value—although it is not yet ended; and the remarkable letters of Mrs. Leonard K. Rhinelander.—I thought of doing all this, but I felt sure that these things did not escape your eye. Even the gossip you get as soon as I, except the local—i.e. New Canaan:—such as how Padriac Colum, returning from a lecture in Montreal with two quarts of whisky in bottles was forced by the conductor—though he'd evaded the inspector—to surrender those and ten dollars too; and how, having no evening tie, in a strange city he appealed to a hotel waiter and got one 'tailor-made' which, as the waiter explained, you affixed to the collar button,—and on the platform at an eloquent moment, it ignominiously fluttered to the floor; and of how the Benets have left us from motives explained by Elinor by labyrinthine reasoning, in the face of the obvious facts, that if she couldn't be in London or Paris, she had to be in New York and she couldn't stand children.—I doubt if she ever comes back but she swears she will; and of how Bob Flaharity, who made Na Nook of the North, etc.—and whose broad pink face shines daily with some new vision, is planning with Will James—who looks exactly like his own cowboys—a cowboy picture epic which will probably come to nothing;—but all these things are trivial and I won't bore you with more.

As ever yours and Zelda's,

Notes:

** Demigods, a novel published by Scribners in 1926.

156. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt Paris, France [ca. December 27, 1925]

Dear Max:

I write to you from the depths of one of my unholy depressions. The book is wonderful—I honestly think that when its published I shall be the best American novelist (which isn't saying a lot) but the end seems far away. When its finished I'm coming home for awhile anyhow though the thought revolts me as much as the thought of remaining in France. I wish I were twenty-two again with only my dramatic and feverishly enjoyed miseries. You remember I used to say I wanted to die at thirty—well, I'm now twenty-nine and the prospect is still welcome. My work is the only thing that makes me happy—except to be a little tight—and for those two indulgences I pay a big price in mental and physical hangovers.

I thank you for your newsy letter—by the way we got and hugely enjoyed Louise's beautiful book and I wrote and thanked her care of Scribners. I liked too your idea about Representative Men but it seems remote to me. Let me know if it comes to something and I'll contribute.**

That was a sweet slam from Ellen Mackey. Is it true that she and Irving Berlin have signed up to play a permanent engagement in Abie's Irish Rose? I hope the short stories sell seven or eight thousand or so. Is Gatsby dead? You don't mention it. Has it reached 25,000? I hardly dare to hope so. Also I deduce from your silence that Tom Boyd's book was a flop. If so I hope he isn't in financial difficulties. Also I gather from reviews that the penciled frown came a croper. I wish Liveright would lose faith in Ernest. Through the whole year only the following American novels have seemed worth a damn to me.

The Spring Flight

Perrenial Bachelor

In Our Time

The Great Gatsby

I thought the books by Lewis, Van Vechten, Edith Wharton, Floyd Dell, Tom Boyd and Sherwood Anderson were just lowsy!

And the ones by Willa Cather and Cyril Hume almost as bad.

Dos Passos & Ruth Suckow I havn't yet read.

The press Anderson got on Dark Laughter filled me with a much brighter shade of hilarity. You notice it wasn't from those of us who waited for the Winesburg stories one by one in the Little Review but by Harry Hansen, Stallings ect & the other boys who find a new genius once a week and at all cost follow the fashions.

Its good you didn't take my advice about looking up Gertrude Stien's new book (The Making of Americans). Its bigger than Ullyses and only the first parts, the parts published in the Transatlantic are intelligable at all. Its published privately here.

The best English books of the fall are The Sailor's Return by David Garnett and No More Parades by Ford Maddox Ford (a sequeal to Some do Not)

(Speaking of Gertrude Stien I hope you are keeping my precious Three Lives safe for me. Ring's book sounds good. Send me a copy—also the wrap of mine.

I told Ober to send you half a dozen seats for the Gatsby opening to distribute to the Scribners as you think best. If you want more phone him.

No, Zelda's not entirely well yet. We're going south next month to Salies-les-Bains to see if we can cure her there So from the time of receiving this letter address all mail to me care of

The Guaranty Trust Co. 1 rue des Italiens Paris, France

Why was Jack Wheeler kicked out of Liberty?

My novel should be finished next fall.

Tell me all the gossip that isn't in The New Yorker or the World—isn't there any regular dirt?

I called on Chatto and Windus in London last month & had a nice talk with Swinnerton, their reader (It was he, it seems, who was strong for the book. Saw Leslie* also & went on some very high tone parties with Mount-battens and all that sort of thing. Very impressed, but not very, as I furnished most of the amusement myself. Please write! Best to Louise.

Your Friend

Has story book had good advance sale? Or hasn't it been the rounds yet? What's its date?

Notes:

The Knave of Hearts (1925), by Louise Saunders, Mrs. Maxwell Perkins.

** Perkins had proposed a burlesque biographical dictionary, with fictional biographies of various American types to be written by Fitzgerald, Lardner, Benchley and others.

* Shane Leslie.

The marriage of society writer Ellen Mackay and Irving Berlin was a sensation; Abie’s Irish Rose was a sentimental play by Anne Nichols about the marriage of an Irish Catholic girl to a Jew.

The Penciled Frown (1926), by James Gray.

By Lee J. Smits (1925).

Lewis’s Arrow smith, Van Vechten’s Firecrackers, Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense, Dell’s This Mad Ideal, Boyd’s Points of Honor, and Anderson’s Dark Laughter.

Cather’s The Professor’s House and Hume’s Cruel Fellowship.

Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer and Suckow’s The Odyssey of a Nice Girl.

Frank Swinnerton, British novelist who was an editor at Chatto & Windus.

Also Turnbull.

157. To Perkins

14 Rue de Tilsitt [New adress Guaranty Trust Co. 1 Rue des Italiennes]^

[ca. December 30, 1925]

Dear Max:

(1.) To begin with many thanks for all deposits, to you and to the Scribners in general. I have no idea now how I stand with you. To set me straight will you send me my account now instead of waiting till February 1st. It must be huge, and I'm miserable about it. The more I get for my trash the less I can bring myself to write. However this year is going to be different.

(2) Hemmingways book (not his novel) is a 28,000 word satire on Sherwood Anderson and his imitators called The Torrents of Spring. I loved it, but believe it wouldn't be popular, & Liveright have refused it—they are backing Anderson and the book is almost a vicious parody on him. You see I agree with Ernest that Anderson's last two books have let everybody down who believed in him—I think they're cheap, faked, obscurantic and awful. Hemmingway thinks, but isn't yet sure to my satisfaction, that their refusal sets him free from his three book (letter) agreement with them. In that case I think he'll give you his novel (on condition you'll publish satire first—probable sale 1000 copies) which he is now revising in Austria. Harcourt has just written Louie Bromfield that to get the novel they'll publish satire, sight unseen (utterly confidential) and Knopf is after him via Aspinwall Bradley.

He and I are very thick & he's marking time until he finds out how much he's bound to Liveright. If he's free I'm almost sure I can get satire to you first & then if you see your way clear you can contract for the novel tout ensemble. He's anxious too to get a foothold in your magazine—one story I've sent you—the other, to my horror he'd given for about $40 to an “arty” publication called This Quarter, over here.

He's dead set on having the satire published first. His idea has always been to come to you & his only hesitation has been that Harcourt might be less conservative in regard to certain somewhat broad scenes. His adress is:

Herr Ernest Hemmingway
Hotel Taube
Schrunns
Vorarlburg
Austria

Don't even tell him I've discussed his Liveright & Harcourt relations with you

As soon as he has definate dope I'll pass it on to you. I wanted a strong wire to show you were as interested, and more, than Harcourt. Did you know your letter just missed by two weeks getting In Our Time. It had no sale of course but I think the novel may be something extraordinary—Tom Boyd and E. E. Cummings & Biggs combined.

Wasn't Dos Passos' book* astonishingly good. I'm very fond of him but I had lost faith in his work.

(3.) Tell me all about my play.

(4.) I can't wait to see the book your sending me. Zelda says it might be Gatsby but I don't think so.

(5) Poor Eleanor Wylie! Poor Bill Benet! Poor everybody!

(6) My novel is wonderful.

(7) The translation of Gatsby sounds wonderful.

(8) Will you ask the bookstore to send The Beautiful and Damned to M. Victor Llona, 106 rue de la Tour, Paris? Thanks. Charge to my account, of course.

(9) I thought Dunn's remark about Biggs' book was wonderful. Tell me about it. Also about Tom Boyd's work and Ring's. You never do.

As Ever

Notes:

^ These brackets are Fitzgerald's.

* Manhattan Transfer.

4 Poet and novelist Elinor Wylie had separated from her husband, critic William Rose Benet.

5 Charles Dunn, editor at Scribners.

Also Turnbull.

158. TO: Maxwell Perkins

Wire. Princeton University

JAN 8 1926
PARIS 1906
YOU CAN GET HEMINGWAYS FINISHED NOVEL PROVIDED YOU PUBLISH UNPROMISING SATIRE HARCOURT HAS MADE DEFINITE OFFER WIRE IMMEDIATELY WITHOUT QUALIFICATIONS¹
FITZGERALD

Notes:

¹ Perkins wired back the same day: PUBLISH NOVEL AT FIFTEEN PERCENT AND ADVANCE IF DESIRED ALSO SATIRE UNLESS OBJECTIONABLE OTHER THAN FINANCIALLY. On the 11th Perkins cabled Fitzgerald: CONFIDENCE ABSOLUTE KEEN TO PUBLISH HIM. Scribners published The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises in 1926. See Bruccoli, Scott and Ernest (New York: Random House, 1978).

159. To Fitzgerald

Jan. 13, 1926

Dear Scott:

I enclose three wraps. Don't judge them without putting them around books, because that is the only way in which you can get any idea of how they will look. They are rather shabby specimens but they are all I can get hold of.

I thought Hemingway's stories astonishingly fine and so does everyone who reads them. It seems strange that Liveright has put so little behind them. I speak of this on the assumption that for some reason he is not to publish any more for Hemingway. Otherwise your cable⁴² would not have come. I did my best with that cable, but there was a fear that this satire—although in the hands of such a writer it could hardly be rightly so upon any theory—might be suppressible. In fact we could tell nothing about it of course in these respects and it is not the policy obviously of Scribners to publish books of certain types. For instance, if it were even Rabelasian to an extreme degree, it might be objected to. It was only this point that prevented me from wiring you without any qualification because those stories are as invigorating as a cold, fresh wind.

I am afraid though that the qualification was fatal.—But in any case, I think it was bully of you to have acted in our behalf in that way. I was much pleased that you did it. As for Harcourt, I think him an admirable publisher and I haven't any criticism of him. But I believe that as compared with most others, Hemingway would be better off in our hands because we are absolutely true to our authors and support them loyally in the face of losses for a long time, when we believe in their qualities and in them. It is that kind of a publisher that Hemingway probably needs, because I hardly think he could come into a large public immediately. He ought to be published by one who believes in him and is prepared to lose money for a period in enlarging his market.—Although he would certainly, even without much support, get recognition through his own powers.

I have not tried to communicate with him because I did not know how far I ought to go, particularly after getting your second telegram. The fact is that we would publish the satire however certain it might be of financial failure because of our faith in him,—and perhaps also because of the qualities of the work itself, of which I cannot speak.

As ever yours,

Notes:

42. Fitzgerald's cable, dated January 8th, had read, “You can get Hemingway's finished novel provided you publish unpromising satire. Harcourt has made definite offer. Wire immediately without qualifications.” The reply, dated the same day, read, “Publish novel at fifteen percent and advance if desired. Also satire unless objectionable other than financially.” A later telegram, dated January 11th, from Scribners, read, “Confidence absolute. Keen to publish him.”

160. To Perkins

c/o Guaranty Trust Co. Paris, France

[ca. January 19, 1926}

Dear Max:

Your thoughtful cablegram⁴³ came today and I can't imagine how the rumor got started—unless from Zelda using an imaginary illness as a protection against the many transients who demand our time. Somehow if one lives in Paris one is fair game for all the bores one wouldn't look at and who wouldn't look at one in New York. (If there's one thing I hate its a sentence full of “ones”)

We have escaped to a small town in the Pyrenes where Zelda is to take a cure. Our adress for cables is

Fitzgerald, Bellevue, Salies-de-Bearn, France

but for letters the Guaranty, Paris is best. We are living in an absolutely deserted hotel. We move on to Nice the first of March. Here are my usual list of things.

(1) Thanks a million times for the bound copy of my book—it is beautiful and, Max, I'm enormously obliged. I wish you'd written in the front—but that will wait till I get home. Your thought of me touched me more than I can say.

(2.) Now about the many deposits. They are past all reckoning but must total $5000 which is a record advance (?) on a book of short stories. I'm terribly sorry, Max. Could he send me my account this year on the 1st of February really instead of February 15th. We won't be able to tell about The Sad Young anyhow and I'm frantic to know if I'm helplessly in debt.

(3.) What is the date of the book? How are advance sales, compared with Gatsby? Did the latter ever reach 25,000?

(4) Now, confidentially, as to Hemminway. He wrote a satire 28,000 words long on Sherwood Anderson, very funny but very cerebral, called The Torrents of Spring. It is biting on Anderson—so Liveright turns it down. Hemminways contract lapses when Liveright turns down a book, so Hemminway says. But I think Horace will claim this isn't a book and fight it like the devil, according to a letter I saw which he wrote Ernest—because he's crazy to get Ernests almost completed novel The Sun Also Rises. It is such a mess that Ernest goes to N.Y. next month.

Meanwhile Harcourt & Knopf are after him but he's favorably disposed toward you because of your letters and of the magazine. He's very excitable, though and I can't promise he'll know his own mind next month. I'll tip you off the moment he arrives. Of course if Bridges likes his work & if you'll take Torrents he's yours absolutely—contingent, of course, on the fact that he isn't bitched by some terrible contract with Liveright. To hear him talk you'd think Liveright had broken up his home and robbed him of millions—but thats because he knows nothing of publishing, except in the cucoo magazines, is very young and feels helpless so far away. You won't be able to help liking him—he's one of the nicest fellows I ever knew.

In addition to the critics will you send my new book to the following people and charge my account (except in cases like Hergesheimer and Van Vechten, who actually reviewed Gatsby)} Send me only 3 copies.

Thanks again for my beautiful copy.

As Ever

Notes:

43. Dated January 18th and addressed to Zelda Fitzgerald, Perkins' telegram had read, “Please cable about Scott. Disturbed by report of illness.” Fitzgerald's cable in reply, dated January 19th, read, “Rumor unfounded.” The rumor was apparently based on a news item which Perkins had seen.

Also Turnbull.

161. To Fitzgerald

Jan. 28, 1926

Dear Scott:

You need not feel ashamed of the play, “The Great Gatsby”. Far from it. Your ideas and the course of the action have been adhered to far more closely than I ever dreamed they would be. The cast is excellent, especially Gatsby, Buchanan, Daisy, and Wolfshiem. Of course you know all about the changes made in the plot. There is a prologue which seemed to me completely superfluous and therefore bad,—but it may not be so from the popular standpoint, although I should certainly vote against it on even that ground. I saw the performance last night at Stamford, and I know you cannot judge anything by the way those out-of-town audiences take a play, but that one was obviously altogether for it. And all the individuals I saw, like the Burts who went with me, and Bob Benchley, who was in the lobby after the second act, were much pleased. You do, of course, have to make allowances for the presentation of a book upon the stage. But when these are made to a reasonable degree, “The Great Gatsby” is distinctly well done. It is certainly a good play, and highly interesting, and it seems to me it has an excellent chance for success. I thought I would send you this word immediately. I heard nothing about the Great Neck performance, but every indication that the Stamford performance gave was most excellent.

As ever yours,

162. To Perkins

Feb. 3, 1926

Dear Scott:

I enclose three reviews of “The Great Gatsby”. I suppose other people will have sent them, and I suppose other people will have informed you about the apparently undoubted success of the first night. I could not go because of the shift from Monday to Tuesday, but all that went from here were vastly interested and said that the audience was a full one and was impressed. There were many curtain calls. Rennie was liked by everyone. You know how little and how much one can tell from a first night, and we will just have to wait, but the omens all seem to be excellent. As for those whom I have seen since the Stamford night, the least favorable was that of a fairly astute couple who had not read the book. They said they thought it was an extremely entertaining play, but not important. I give that because you never can tell how much one who has read the book reads into the play…

That story of Hemingway's is most excellent.* I do not know what he will make of my letter which I enclose. We are just compelled to ask him to cut, and it will be hard to do. And I judge he is one of those whose interest is much more in producing than in publishing, and he may revolt at the idea of being asked to conform to an artificial specification in length. I wish with his very first story that we did not have to bring this up. I know we can take stories of his though, if he will send them, and I hope he may let us have this. People are beginning to talk about his writing,—those who find things for themselves and appreciate aside from technical literary qualities, a true eye for reality. There is much else to be said of it, but I think that is at the bottom of it,—perhaps it is a real basis of all true writing, when properly understood.

…

Thanks ever so much for sending the Hemingway. If only we could get the novel!

…

Yours as ever,

Notes:

* “Fifty Grand,” which Hemingway had submitted to Scribner's Magazine.

163. To Perkins

[c/o Guaranty Trust Co.] [ 1 Rue des Italiens] [Paris, France]

[ca. February 8, 1926]

Dear Max -

Thanks a million times for your wire and your letter about the Stanford performance. I hope to God it'll make some money for me at last. I agree with you about the prologue.

In regard to my novel. Will you ask somebody what is done if one American murders another in France. Would an American marshall come over for him? From his state of residence? Who would hold him meanwhile—the consul or the French police? Why isn't that so if one Italien kills another Italien in America.

Its important that I find this out and I can't seem to.

In a certain sense my plot is not unlike Driesers in the American Tragedy. At first this worries me but now it doesn't for our minds are so different.

…

Do you know I now get 2500 a story from the Post—or did I tell you?

I should be writing this afternoon but I'm nervous as hell and can't. Zelda is much better. My novel will be called either The World's Fair or Our Type, I don't know which.

As Ever Your Friend

164. To Perkins

c/o Guaranty Trust Co. 1 Rue des Italiens Paris, France

[ca. February 13, 1926]

You've been a peach, Max, about writing and wiring news about the play. Here we are in the Pyrenees with the following events taking place in the great world.

(1.) Gatsby on the stage

(2) Gatsby in England.

(3.) Gatsby translation being placed with publisher in Paris.

(4.) All the Sad Young Men in New York.

So, in spite of a side trip once a week to Biarritz or Pau or Lourdes or St. Sebastian, we feel a bit out of date. We expect to leave for Nice on March 1st or thereabouts. The letter to Hemminway must have crossed him. By now you've seen him in New York. Your letter was your usual responsive yet tactful self. I hope you get his novel. He's worth 100 Westcotts.

…

As Ever

165. To Perkins

South of France

Feb 20th, 1926

Dear Max:

Two things have just occurred to me—or rather three.

(1.) You'll get this letter about the 3d of March. My book of stories may, at that time have been out three weeks or three days—you've not told me the date. Will you in any case write me immediately forcasting roughly the approximate sale? I know it can be only guesswork and you'll be afraid of overestimating but I'd like to know at least the sale to that date. It has something to do with my income tax which must leave here the 14th. Also, would you send me an income tax blank?

My God! If it should sell 10,000 copies I'd be out of debt to you for the 1st time since 1922. Isn't that a disgrace, when I get $2500. for a story as my regular price. But trash doesn't come as easily as it used to and I've grown to hate the poor old debauched form itself.

How about Tom Boyd? Is he still going to be one of the barnyard boys? Or has he got sense and decided to write about the war, or seducing married women in St. Paul, or life in a bum Kentucky military school, or something he knows about. He has no touch of genius like Hemmingway and Cummings but like Dos Passos he has a strong, valuable talent. He must write about the external world, as vividly and accutely and even brilliantly as he can, but let him stop there. He is almost without the power of clear ratiocination and he has no emotional depths whatsoever. His hide is so thick that only battle itself could really make an impression on him—playing with the almost evanescent spiritual material of Anderson he becomes an ox to public view. I wish to God I could see him & talk to him. For heavens sake, Max, curb your usual (and, generally, sagacious) open-mindedness and don't help him to ruin his future by encouraging his stupidest ambitions. He'll turn bitter with failure.

(2) Has the play's success helped the book Gatsby? My theory, you know, is that nowadays there's not the faintest connection. That's why I wouldn't allow a movie edition of The Beautiful and Damned. By the way I don't imagine those little 75 cent books sell any more. They shouldn't. Do they? I mean did Jesse Williams', Arthur Train's, Wilson's addresses, etc., sell like The Perfect Tribute and The Third Wise Man?

Now, confidential. T.S. Eliot for whom you know my profound admiration—I think he's the greatest living poet in any language—wrote me he'd read Gatsby three times & thought it was the 1st step forward American fiction had taken since Henry James.

Wait till they see the new novel!

Did you get Hemmingway?

There was something else I wanted to ask you. What was it? damn it!

We're coming home in the fall, but I don't want to. I'd like to live and die on the French Rivierra

What's the inside dope on the Countess Cathcart case?

I can't remember my other question and its driving me frantic. Frantic! (Half an hour later) Frantic!

FRANTIC!!!

If you see anybody I know tell 'em I hate 'em all, him especially. Never want to see 'em again.

Why shouldn't I go crazy? My father is a moron and my mother is a neurotic, half insane with pathological nervous worry. Between them they havn't and never have had the brains of Calvin Coolidge.

If I knew anything I'd be the best writer in America.

Eureka! Remembered! Refer my movie offers to Reynolds.

Notes:

By Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews (1906).

Unidentified; perhaps The Story of the Other Wise Man (1899 and 1923), by Henry Van Dyke.

In a sensational 1921 British court case, Vera, Countess Cathcart, daughter of a South African diamond magnate, had been divorced by the Earl of Cathcart on grounds of adultery. In February 1926, when Countess Cathcart attempted to enter New York to stage a production of her autobiographical play Ashes, she was detained by immigration officials who contended that she should be barred from the United States because of her “moral turpitude.” The countess was admitted to the country, where she remained for only a few weeks; but her case stirred controversy over the nature and intent of American immigration laws.

Also Turnbull

166. TO: Maxwell Perkins

c. March 1, 1926

ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University; Life In Letters

Hotel Bellevue

Salies-de-Bearn

Dear Max:

Ernest will reach N. Y. as soon as this. Apparently he’s free so its between you and Harcourt. He’ll get in touch with you.

There are several rather but not very Rabelaisian touches in Torrents of Spring (the satire) No worse than Don Stuart or Benchley’s Anderson parody. Also Harcourt is said to have offerred $500. advance Torrents and $1000. on almost completed novel. (Strictly confidential.) If Bridges takes 50 Grand I don’t think Ernest would ask you to meet those advances but here I’m getting involved in a diplomacy you can handle better. I don’t say hold 50 Grand over him but in a way he’s holding it over you—one of the reasons he verges toward you is the magazine.

In any case he is tempermental in business made so by these bogus publishers over here. If you take the other two things get a signed contract for The Sun Also Rises (novel) Anyhow this is my last word on the subject—confidential between you + me. Please destroy this letter.

Zelda liked Biggs wrapper—I didn’t, much.

I “ Ring’s “ —Zelda didn’t much.

Niether of us thought mine was a success—a fair idea but drab and undistinguished—the figure might be a woman. I think it would have been much wiser to have just printing as I suggested. In fact its much the least satisfactory jacket I’ve had. However, after Gatsby I dont believe people buy jackets any more.

Will you send me a sample copy of this McNaughts magazine some time?

You havn’t mentioned Bigg’s book—is it the migrations of the Dunkards or something new. And is it good?

As Ever
Scott Fitzg—

How about Tom and Peggy?

Notes:

Both Donald Ogden Stewart and Robert Benchley wrote popular literary parodies.

For Biggs’s first novel, Demigods (1926).

For The Love Nest and Other Stories (1926).

For All the Sad Young Men (1926).

167. To Perkins

March 4, 1926

Dear Scott:

I just got your letter today asking for an income tax blank. I enclose one herewith…

As for the sale of “All the Sad Young Men” which only came out last Friday, February 26th, we are already watching it very closely for reprinting. We have printed 10,100, and we have only about 300 on hand now, although of course many that are in the stores have not been sold. I feel no hesitancy in saying that you can count absolutely on a sale of 12,000, and the truth is the prospects are excellent. “The Great Gatsby” continues to be successful, markedly so.

I asked Arthur Train about an American who murders another American in France. He is treated as though he were a Frenchman. He is taken in charge by the French police and tried in the French courts by a French judge and jury. I hope this fact won't upset some plan you had for the novel. I asked Arthur if there were any possible way in which there might be some form of American intervention—an envoy of justice, or something, and he said only in case the murderer were in the diplomatic service. Otherwise, he would have the same status as a Frenchman.

I think “Our Type” is the best title. Would “Our Kind” be better? It was used by Louise on a little one-act play, but that would make no difference.

As for Hemingway, whom I enjoyed very much, we have contracted to publish “Torrents of Spring” and the novel. He was willing to give us options on other books, but I never felt well of that way of doing:—if a man does not like us after we have published two of his books, he ought not to be compelled to publish through us, and we do not want to publish for anyone who is not square enough to recognize that what we have done is good, if it is, and to give us the advantage over anybody else. If a writer can get better terms from another publisher on his third or fourth book, it is only fair that he can also demand better terms of us. The relations you have with an author cannot be satisfactory if they are absolutely cut and dried business relations, anyhow. I am extremely grateful to you for intervening about Hemingway. He is a most interesting chap about his bull fights and boxing. His admirable story, “Fifty Grand” was too long to be got into the magazine, and it has been declined by Colliers and the Post,—although Lorimer spoke highly of it. Liberty could not use it because of its length. I do not know exactly what to do with it now. I believe I could sell it to College Humor, but I do not know whether he would like that.

I think your idea about selections from your books of stories primarily for publication in England, is an excellent one; and I do not think there would be much difficulty in bringing it about.⁴⁴ Curtis Brown, the agent who has placed your stories for us, could bring it about and would manage it well. Collins would not be in any position to make difficulties because he has sacrificed his opportunity by declining “Gatsby”…

I am mighty glad Zelda is better. I am getting off this series of facts as quickly as possible on account of the income tax, etc., but I will write you a letter soon.

As ever yours,

P.S. Tom Boyd has a job on the Atlanta Georgian,—I guess a pretty good job. He said he was not going to write another book right away. I agree with you about his powers of ratiocination, quite, but I should not have thought that he was lacking in emotion, and I thought there was great emotion implied throughout “Samuel Drummond” as well as that sensitiveness to the external world. But the total sale was only about five thousand copies.

Notes:

44. Early in February, Fitzgerald had written that he was considering “collecting in one volume the best stories from my 3 books, to be published by you in about two years but to be published in England next year perhaps, instead of publishing All the Sad Young Men. ”

168. To Perkins

Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pius Alpes Maritime France adress till June 15th

[ca. March 15, 1926]

Dear Max:

Thanks very much for your nice letter & the income blank. I'm delighted about the short story book. In fact with the play going well & my new novel growing absorbing & with our being back in a nice villa on my beloved Rivierra (between Cannes and Nice) I'm happier than I've been for years. Its one of those strange, precious and all too transitory moments when everything in one's life seems to be going well.

Thanks for the Arthur Train legal advice.

I'm glad you got Hemmingway—I saw him for a day in Paris on his return & he thought you were great. I've brought you two successes (Ring & Tom Boyd) and two failures (Biggs & Woodward Boyd)—Ernest will decide whether my opinions are more of a hindrance or a help.

Why not try College Humor for his story. They published one thing of mine.

Poor Tom Boyd! First I was off him for his boneheadedness. Now I'm sorry for him.

Your friend

I am out of debt to you for the first time in four years.

Think of that horse's ass F.P.A. coming around to my work after six years of neglect. I'd like to stick his praise up his behind, God knows it's no use to me now.

Will you get the enclosure for me, open it, and write me?

Notes:

Perkins had asked Train about the rights of Americans who commit murder on French soil—a plot element in Fitzgerald’s projected novel.

Also Turnbull, there the date is listed as [circa February 25]

169. To Perkins

Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins France

[ca. April 25, 1926]

Dear Max:

Why in God's name did the advertising department broadcast a rotten sketch of me that makes me look like a degenerate? Its come to me in a dozen clippings and will probably haunt me the next five years. As it appears in Scribners magazine I suppose Myers sent it out—otherwise I would have thought it originated with some country magazine that needed space in an awful hurry. I know it's partly my own fault for not sending you one and I suppose this sounds vain and unpleasant but if you knew how it has taken the joy out of the press on my book to have that leering, puffy distortion reach me at the head of almost every review you'd know the way I've gotten worked up over it.

Thanks many times for Our Times.* I read every word of it and loved it. Thoroughly interesting. About Mary Column's article:+ I thought that the more solid parts were obvious and pedantic, and that a good half of it was the sort of nonsense I didn't expect from her. What on earth is the connection between Cocteau and Cummings? What does she mean by form. Does she think King Lear lacks it? While Marianne Moore has it? She uses it in the sense of successful conscious organization (so one thinks) and then it develops that she means mere novelty. Says she:

“How profoundly true to their race, period and the needs of their public are the great artists—Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere! You can from their work pick out all the qualities, all the thoughts, all the ideals of the time that needed expression.”

How in the devil does she know that? How does anyone know that. There may have been whole elements in each of their times (John Donne, Roger Bacon in Shakespeare's and Dante's respective times for example) whose ideals & spirits were not even faintly summed up by the powerful but fallible and all-too-human titan who succeeded in forcing on us his picture. Don't you agree?

I disliked the essay chiefly because its so plausible, and so dead, like (whisper it not, because I like him) the critical work of Ernest Boyd. Perhaps because I've just finished Checkov's Letters on Literature. God, there's a book!

You owe me a long letter

As Ever

Notes:

* Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925, Vol. I, by Mark Sullivan, published by Scribners in 1926.

+ “A Critical Credo,” Scribner's Magazine, April 1926.

Also Turnbull.

170. To Fitzgerald

April 27, 1926

Dear Scott:

The picture is bad and caused us to hesitate. But that it was so widely printed showed the chance there was for a picture, and we could not forego that chance. The truth is we have no picture of you but those old ones, which ought not any longer to be used even if they could be—they are too widely known. Anyway, the chief value of pictures is simply that of catching the eye. People hardly expect likenesses in a newspaper, but they do look at a picture and read the caption, and, in this instance, are reminded that they have not yet met All the Sad Young Men. That bit of obvious psychology accounts for our use of pictures in the enclosed “ads”; they serve solely to draw attention, are only thereby justified.

As for sales, they are something over 10,000 to date. We have printed 15,000. The prospects are good. I don't enclose reviews,—your clipping agency will furnish them.

The Galsworthys passed through New York on the way to England. I gave them your book and she was much pleased. So was he, but he talked of it (between ourselves) with less judgment. He did speak of “Gatsby” as “a great advance”;—but he's not really in sympathy with things today. The books he most admires—I won't mention the one I'm thinking of because it's ours—are laid out on the old lines and are not expressive of present thought and feeling. This is much less true of Mrs. Galsworthy, it seemed to me;—it may be that women, living much more in the present, from day to day, don't get rooted in a period as men almost inevitably do.

The other day I assigned to you “all right, title and interest in and to the motion picture rights” of “The Great Gatsby,” that Reynolds² might sell them. So that will bring you something, and not a little.

The O’Brien³ book did not contain any of your stories, but some of them were listed as follows:

*** Absolution
** Adjuster
* Baby Party
Love in the Night
* One of My Oldest Friends
**Our Own Movie Queen
** Pusher-in-the-Face
Sensible Thing

Molly Colum's⁴ article drew considerable written comment and was vocally much discussed;—which in itself proves nothing except that it was good for Scribner's, as having been in what criticism it has printed, too classical and accademic. I detest argument and though I cannot restrain myself often from a verbal one, I can from a written, and so do now.

I'm almost afraid to tell you about a book that I think incredibly interesting—Spengler's “Decline of the West”—for you'll tell me it's 'old stuff' and that you read it two years ago;—for it was published eight years ago in Germany, and probably six in France, and has been a long time translating into English. I'm trying for a time to read that and Clarendon's “History of the Rebellion” which long ago attracted me through quotations from it I was always encountering in other books.

Our really great success this spring promises to be Thomason's “Fix Bayonets!”;—for, although its price is $3.50, it's already well on toward a sale of ten thousand copies, and we're printing five thousand more. Sullivan is also going strong. I think Hemingway's book* will look well when done: we've made several good cuts to stand on the half title pages;—but it's the novel that I'm most eager to see, “The Sun Also Rises”! They say Dreiser is anxious to leave Liveright, who has certainly done well by him. In fact, there's a story about that he threw a cup of coffee into Liveright's face,—but if it had been true it would have been confirmed, for the Algonquin was the alleged scene of the encounter,—a broadcasting station if ever there was one.

Van Wyck Brooks has been in New Canaan for several months; but although I've seen much of him there was little fun in it because he is so depressed;—and the chief cause is (in confidence) that he's stuck in his book on Emerson.* He can't finish it and declares it's a failure. I read it and suggested a scheme to apply to it which would give the structure it totally lacks. But Van Wyck won't adopt it,—at least not as yet. Perhaps he will in the end.—So he says he must get a job; and I say, 'What a shame at your age, with a foundation of reputation well laid. Set down the names of ten lesser American writers as titles for articles and I'll sell them at five hundred a piece, and the result will be a book that will outsell any you've done.' But he says he cannot write that way, and so we get no further. What he wants, of course, is a 'part time' job, but such a one if it continues will suck a man under.—Van Wyck could also, and profitably, lecture; for he has a body of ideas all related to U.S. 'civilization' and letters and he could get up a series which would be altogether in line with his literary motives.—But I ought not to bother you with his problem.

We had a grand winter at New Canaan. Skating on most of the weekends and hockey, and over New Years, for three windless days, the whole three-mile lake, a sheet of flexible black ice.

As ever your friend,

Notes:

3 The Best Short Stories of 1925, edited by Edward O’Brien.

4 Mary M. Colum, “A Critical Credo,” in Scribner's Magazine, April 1926.

⁵ Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925, Vol. I, by Mark Sullivan, Scribners, 1926.

* The Torrents of Spring, published by Scribners on May 28th.

* Eventually published by Dutton in 1932 as The Life of Emerson.

171. To Perkins

Villa Paquita Juan-les-Pins France

[ca. May 8, 1926]

Dear Max:

Thanks many times for all the books. The Hickey ^ I loved, having read the other three volumes of it. The war book** too was great—God, what bad luck Tom Boyd had! Stallings made the killing with the play and movie; now Thomason makes a contract with Hearst, for a lot, I guess and Tom who came first came too early, I suppose. Yet What Price Glory? would never have been written, I suppose, except for Through the Wheat. Not that Tom's novel wasn't a success in a way but to make about $6000. as an originator & see others rake it in like croupiers later—I know how bitter it must make him.

The Biggs book^^ was tedious. I'm allowing for having seen it all at least three times but it was tedious. Undoubted power and a great gift of prose but you cant arbitrarily patch together swads of fine writing and call it a novel. And parts of it were merely sensational bombast. I'm sorry.

Nor, I'm afraid, will Ring's book* add to his reputation. Several stories were fine, none were cheap but—God, I wish he'd write a more or less personal novel. Couldn't you persuade him? The real history of an American manager, say Ziegfeld or a theatrical girl. Think how far Anita Loos got with a mere imitation of him.

I'm enclosing a letter. If you are willing I'd like to have them use “May Day” from Tales of the Jazz Age and “The Rich Boy” from All the Sad Young Men.

If it is too soon, in your judgment, to use the latter I could substitute “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” If you act as my agent in a case like this will you take it up with them? If not, let me know immediately and I will.

Also Charlie Bailey of Henry Holt wants to use “The Camel's Back” in an anthology. I suppose it's all right, good advertising, etc. I'd rather have him use “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” if [he] would. Both are in Tales of the Jazz Age.

The reviews of All the Sad Young Men have been pleasant, mostly, but, after the book and the play, rather tame. Did it go to 12,000 as you suggested? We've had some good nibbles for the movie rights of Gatsby but they want $45,000, I hear. I get one third of the gross price.

See my article on Hemmingway in the Bookman^—its pretty good.

In absolute confidence I've recieved an offer of $3,500 per short story from Liberty. I'm considering it.

My book is wonderful. I don't think it'll be interrupted again. I expect to reach New York about Dec 10th with the ms. under my arm. I'll ask between $30,000 & $40,000 for the serial rights and I think Liberty will want it. So book publication would be late Spring 1927 or early fall.

No news. Do write. Tell me if Torrents of Spring gets a press. I doubt if it will sell. Again thank you for the books.

Ever and Always Your Friend

Why don't you come over for a month this summer? You and Louise and the two oldest children! Has your depression of last December gone?

Notes:

^ Memoirs of William Hickey.

** Probably John W. Thomason, Jr.'s Fix Bayonets, published by Scribners in the Spring of 1926.

^^ Demigods.

* The Love Nest and Other Stories.

+ “How to Waste Material,” published in the May issue.

Also Turnbull.

172. To Perkins

Villa St. Louis Juan-les-Pins

[ca. May 10, 1926]

Dear Max:

The mistral is raging outside like the end of the world and the idea of writing is anathema to me. We are wonderfully situated in a big house on the shore with a beach and The Casino not 100 yds. away and every prospect of a marvellous summer.

I'm sorry about Van Wyke Brookes. You yourself sounded a bit depressed.*

Dreiser would be crazy to leave Liveright, tho I can understand how Horace would get on his nerves. I heard that the movie rights of An American Tragedy brought $90,000. but I don't believe it. Gatsby so it now appears sold for $50,000. An agent on the coast got 10% and Davis, Brady & I split the $45,000. Then I had to pay Reynolds 10% more so instead of $16,666.66 I recieved $13,500.000 or $3,166.66 went in agents commissions. However I shouldn't kick. Everybody sells movies through an agent & the Reynolds part was nessessary since I'm away. I thought the drawings for The Sad Young Men ads were fine. By the way I'm sending two negatives for pictures. Do send them out right away to replace the others.

Thanks for the O'Brien anthology information. You have never mentioned a cheap edition of Gatsby. Not that I care, for I'm rather skeptical about it, but I'm curious to know if it was ever put up to the trade. Tell me what you think of The Sun Also Rises.

I'm not surprised at Galesworthy's not being responsive to my stuff. I've found that if you don't respond to another man's writings the chances are it's mutual—and except for The Apple Tree and, oddly enough, Saints Progress he leaves me cold. I suspect he had some unfortunate iddylic love affair in his youth and whenever that crops into his work it comes alive to me. The subject matter of The Forsythe Saga seemed stuffy to me. I entirely “approve” of him though and liked him personally.

Have you considered coming over?

Always your friend

Notes:

* Perkins had told of Van Wyck Brooks losing confidence in the book he was writing.

Also Turnbull.

173. To Perkins

June 18, 1926

Dear Scott:

“The Torrents” gets praise but not always comprehension. Hemingway sent through me a letter to Anderson. What did he say, I wonder? Not that, as it seemed to me, he need make any apology. I did not think the thing cruel, as Liveright apparently did. There was as much humor in the book as wit. It was not, as we used to say some seasons back—“devastating”. I'm waiting impatiently for proof of “The Sun Also Rises”. That showed more 'genius' than I had inferred from “The Torrents”—which I did not rate so very high—and “In Our Time”;—though I'd inferred much. Your Bookman article I thought excellently done.—...

I could come over—and how quickly I'd do it—if it weren't for all these children. We got our French governess who is capable and a good teacher, but as Molly Colum said, “I've yet to see her do any genuine governess-ing.” She's fairly young, and, not unnaturally, is chiefly interested in herself. Next year I think we shall go over, but I suppose you won't. Where will you live here? You ought to try to settle in some typical community for quite a long time, not for your future as a citizen so much as for that as a writer:—You'd see a new surface of life that way.

Take Wilmington for instance. Louise and I went down to John's* for a week end and I've been thinking about it ever since. There's a kind of feudalism. The DuPonts, an immense family, mostly female, dominate the town. They marry whom they will. A strong, practical race of vast wealth. We went to a DuPont wedding and saw most of them, and found them fine looking except for an excess of powerful teeth. They are almost the whole show. The talk is always of the doing of one or another. They have the eccentricity and independence—not arrogance for they are simple and natural—that comes from their position, and offer a most interesting subject for conversation.

John has a house on the flat top of a hill at a little distance from a much larger, higher hill which makes a smooth, round ascent. The house is of some Dutch type, of stone covered with light gray cement, which look high and steep, as if they belonged rather in the city. The walls go straight up with no piazzas and as it seems, few windows. Why they should have built such steep-walled, fort-like places, in so mild a climate, I don't know. You see one on every hillside or summit.—But it rained, or dripped all the time we were there and I got a cold,—now an unhappy memory, thank God. There was a most entertaining man named Wiley—author of two novels of a certain quality, but, pale and weak, as I gathered from a fifteen minute survey of them—who gave the most incredible accounts of life in an advertising agency. I was almost hysterical over the ladies who regard Fleischmann's yeast as an opportunity for publicity, and a fine photograph in a fur coat, or a canoe, or on a fine horse, and sometimes get proposed to as a result. You've seen the ads. Did you see that one of Bruce Barton's “The Man Nobody Knows” headed “Christ the Executive” illustrated with two pictures, in juxtaposition, of groups of men around a table? One showed Christ and the twelve apostles; the other a twentieth century “Chairman of the Board” and the directors of a corporation.—I'd meant to send you that and lost it as a genuine whiff of the U.S.A.

It's true John's book was not a success. I mean he was not successful with it. But it has astonishing qualities and he may, he should, get command over them,—if he has time. It did make a good impression. I realized long ago, as I saw the manuscript little by little, that he could not fulfill his design, which was too vague in his own mind for one thing, to perfection. And with a tour de force like that perfection is what you need. He's writing another now, is eager to do my story about the biologist and the pernicious insects.

…

As ever yours,

Notes:

* John Biggs.

174. To Perkins

Villa St. Louis Juan-les-Pins A-M.

[ca. June 25, 1926]

Dear Max:

Thanks for both letters. We were in Paris having Zelda's appendix neatly but firmly removed or I would have answered before.

First as to Ernests book.* I liked it but with certain qualifications. The fiesta, the fishing trip, the minor characters were fine. The lady I didn't like, perhaps because I don't like the original.^ In the mutilated man** I thought Ernest bit off more than can yet be chewn between the covers of a book, then lost his nerve a little and edited the more vitalizing details out. He has since told me that something like this happened. Do ask him for the absolute minimum of necessary changes, Max—he's so discouraged about the previous reception of his work by publishers and magazine editors (tho he loved your letter). From the latter he has had a lot of words and until Bridges offer for the short story (from which he had even before cut out a thousand words on my recommendation) scarcely a single dollar. From the Torrents I expect you'll have little response. Do you think the Bookman article did him any good?

I roared at the idea of you and the fish in the tree.

O.K. as to Haldeman-Julius.

Will you ask them (your accounting department) to send me an account the 1st of August? I'd love to see what a positive statement looks like for the first time in three years.

I am writing Bridges today. I have an offer now for a story at $3500 (rather for six stories). To sell one for $1000 would mean a dead loss of $2500 and as I average only six stories a year I don't see how I can do it. I hope he'll understand.

The novel, in abeyance during Zelda's operation now goes on apace. This is confidential but Liberty, with certain conditions, has offered me $35,000. sight unseen. I hope to have it done in January.

Do send out a picture to everyone that got that terrible one.

Ever your Friend

Notes:

* The Sun Also Rises.

^ Lady Duff Twysden, the model for Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises.

** Jake Barnes, in The Sun Also Rises.

Also Turnbull.

175. To Perkins

Villa St. Louis Juan-les-Pins A-M-

[ca. August 11, 1926]

Dear Max:

As to your questions

(1.) Unless the Americans are first driven out of France (as at present seems not unlikely—I'll be home with the finished manuscript of my book about mid-December. We'll be a week in New York, then south to Washington & Montgomery to see our respective parents & spend Xmas—and back in New York in mid-January to spend the rest of the winter. Whether the Spring will see us back on Long Island or returning to Europe depends on politics, finances and our personal desires.

(2.) The only censorable thing I found in Ernest's book was the “balls” conversation. I didn't find the James thing objectionable but then he seems to me to have been dead fifty years.

(3.) I'm sorry “Torrents” hasn't done better & delighted about “The Sad Young Men.” Have you sounded out Curtiss Brown about an anthology of my stories in England. Still that better wait till my novel. Don't forget the August statement.

(4) God, how much I've learned in these two and a half years in Europe. It seems like a decade & I feel pretty old but I wouldn't have missed it, even its most unpleasant & painful aspects.

(5) About the Scribners' story I wrote Bridges. If another “Absolution” turns up he shall have first look.

I do want to see you, Max

Always your Friend

Notes:

Also Turnbull.

176. To Fitzgerald

Nov. 4, 1926

Dear Scott:

…

“The Sun Also Rises” came out a week ago last Friday, and it had excellent reviews in the Times and Tribune, and a number of people of consequence are extremely enthusiastic about it. Hemingway sent me a story called, “The Killers”, a very good one, and that Bridges took immediately, and now another has just come which I hope he will take. This is obviously the time to put him to the front, and hold him there, and if we could run several stories close together, we should be helped.

Tom and Peggy Boyd turned up in September at Ridgefield, Conn., about twelve miles from New Canaan. When I came back from a week's vacation, they were settled there more or less, in a rented house but the house has no furnace, and it gets mighty cold in Connecticut. Last week when no furnace had been installed, though long before promised, the real estate man said they were entitled to cancel the lease, and that he would help them get a house that did have a furnace; but on the way they looked at a rather fine old house which was for sale, and Tom bought it.—It has no furnace! But they don't seem to worry much. Anyhow, we are planning to reset and publish in a larger book, with about sixteen full-page pictures by Thomason, a new edition of “Through the Wheat” at $3.50. I believe it will sell that way, and it is entitled to be put forward again in times more propitious to war books.

Louise had a story in last month's Harpers, but not a good one. In Scribner's she is soon to have one that is far better. She is working on a third. If she could only manage to put writing ahead of a number of other things, I believe she could go pretty far, and so I try to keep her at it, although it is an expensive luxury:—every time she gets a story under way, she feels that she is going to earn some money, and that this entitles her to be a little extravagant;—so long before the story is finished, four or five times the amount of money that it could possibly bring in has been spent.

I have heard that the daughter of Scott and Zelda is extremely sophisticated and so I may have to apologize to her for sending a copy of “Smoky” but it is highly regarded by some who are her elders by a number of years, and so I took a chance. If she does like it, I will get Will James to draw a special picture in it when he comes on again.

I look forward to your coming home as much as almost anything. I hope I shall get a chance to talk to you, but let's not do it at that cafe where they make the double gin rickys. I enjoy them, but I never can seem to talk to any purpose after even a swallow of the liquor.

As ever yours,

WHO'S WHO

Maxwell E. Perkins (1884–1947), editorial director at Charles Scribner’s Sons, was Fitzgerald’s generous friend and closest literary adviser. He fought for the publication of Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, and thereafter provided encouragement and financial backing. At Scribners Perkins assembled a great stable of writers that included Ring Lardner, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. His literary judgment and commitment to his writers have become legendary. See A. Scott Berg, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (New York: Dutton/Congdon, 1978).

The letters of Perkins were published in:

Editor To Author: The Letters Of Maxwell E. Perkins, ed. by Wheelock, J. H. (1950 - some letters in Dear Scott / Dear Max were taken from here);
Ring Around Max: the Correspondence of Ring Lardner and Maxwell Perkins (1973);
The Only Thing that Counts: The Ernest Hemingway/Maxwell Perkins Correspondence (1996);
Max and Marjorie: The Correspondence between Maxwell E. Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1999);
To Loot My Life Clean: The Thomas Wolfe-Maxwell Perkins Correspondence (2000);
As Ever Yours: The Letters of Max Perkins and Elizabeth Lemmon (2003);
The Sons of Maxwell Perkins: Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Their Editor (2004).

These letters were first published in books:

1) The Crack-Up, ed. by E. Wilson (1945);
2) Esquire magazine (1971, June, by );
3) The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. by A. Turnbull (1963);
4) Dear Scott / Dear Max ed. by John Kuehl and Jackson R. Bryer (1971) - the base text for this Collection.
5) Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Margaret M. Duggan with Susan Walker (1980);

Dear Scott/Dear MaxCorrespondence of Scott Fitzgerald and Maxwell Perkins

Chapter 2: Trimalchio (April 1924 - December 1926)

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128. TO: Maxwell Perkins

128a. TO: Robert Kerr

128b. TO: Van Wyck Brooks

128c. TO: Sinclair Lewis

128d. TO: H. L. Mencken

128e. TO: Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald

128f. Other presentation slips

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Dear Scott/Dear Max
Correspondence of Scott Fitzgerald and Maxwell Perkins