The beautiful and damned
"F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful...
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons,
1922.
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| Series: | Scribner library. Contemporary classics.
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| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | "F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. But their intense romance turns sour as they waste their time and energy in decadent leisure and luxury. Their happiness comes to depend on gaining a vast inheritance from Anthony's grandfather, but they are stifled by their inner fears and are ill-prepared for the inevitable loss of youth and prosperity. Set amid the vibrant social and commercial world of New York in the early twentieth century, the novel expresses the promise and disillusionment of America at the start of the Jazz Age. This is the novel that confirmed Fitzgerald's status as the most celebrated young American writer of the Twenties. The author's exuberant and enchanting style is on full display, three years before the critical triumph of The Great Gatsby."--Provided by publisher. |
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| Physical Description: | 449 pages ; 20 cm. |
| ISBN: | 9780684717586 0684717581 9780307476357 0307476359 9781847492128 1847492126 9780684801551 0684801558 9780141194073 0141194073 9781476733425 1476733422 9780684101514 0684101513 9780684178165 0684178168 9780684151533 0684151537 |
| Author Notes: | Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the finest American writers of the 20th Century. His most notable work was the novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). The novel focused on the themes of the Roaring Twenties and of the loss of innocence and ethics among the nouveau riche. He also made many contributions to American literature in the form of short stories, plays, poetry, music, and letters. Ernest Hemingway, who was greatly influenced by Fitzgerald's short stories, wrote that Fitzgerald's talent was "as fine as the dust on a butterfly's wing." Yet during his lifetime Fitzgerald never had a bestselling novel and, toward the end of his life, he worked sporadically as a screenwriter at motion picture studios in Los Angeles. There he contributed to scripts for such popular films as Winter Carnival and Gone with the Wind. Fitzgerald's work is inseparable from the Roaring 20s. Berenice Bobs Her Hair and A Diamond As Big As The Ritz, are two short stories included in his collections, Tales of the Jazz Age and Flappers and Philosophers. His first novel The Beautiful and Damned was flawed but set up Fitzgerald's major themes of the fleeting nature of youthfulness and innocence, unattainable love, and middle-class aspiration for wealth and respectability, derived from his own courtship of Zelda. This Side of Paradise (1920) was Fitzgerald's first unqualified success. Tender Is the Night, a mature look at the excesses of the exuberant 20s, was published in 1934. Much of Fitzgerald's work has been adapted for film, including Tender is the Night , The Great Gatsby, and Babylon Revisited which was adapted as The Last Time I Saw Paris by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954. The Last Tycoon, adapted by Paramount in 1976, was a work in progress when Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood, California. Fitzgerald is buried in the historic St. Mary's Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. (Bowker Author Biography) |
