The Author’s Apology
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I don’t want to talk about myself because I’ll admit I did that somewhat in this book. In fact, to write it took three months; to conceive it—three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life. The idea of writing it came on the first of last July: it was a substitute form of dissipation.
My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence: An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.
So, gentlemen, consider all the cocktails mentioned in this book drunk by me as a toast to the American Booksellers Association.
May, 1920
Sincerely, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Note
This text was inserted as separately printed glossy page in the third printing of “This Side of Paradise” book; all 500 or so copies were handwritten by Scott himself.
Published in This Side of Paradise book (third printing).
Not illustrated.