Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (570 page)

Anyhow after careful searching of the files (of a man’s mind here) for the Fuller Magee case and 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 and 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
and 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, and 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 it’s Edith Cummings) but she fades out. It’s Chapter VII that’s the trouble with Daisy and it may hurt the book’s popularity that it’s
a man’s
book.

Anyhow I think (for the first time since
The
Vegetable failed) that I’m a wonderful writer and it’s 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 verisimilitude 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 third Une to end of fourth 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 your 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 and 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
Vietch
wasted in a novelette when, despite Anderson, the short story is at its lowest ebb as an art form. (Despite Ruth Suckow, Gertrude Stein, 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 thought
The
White
Monkey
was stinko. On second thoughts I didn’t like Cowboys, West
and
South either. What about
Bal
du Comte d’Orgel? and Ring’s set? and his new book? and Gertrude Stein? and Hemingway?

I still owe the store almost $700.00 on my encyclopedia, but I’ll pay them on about January 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,

Scott Fitz —

Hotel
des Princes
Rome,

Italy (But
address the American Express Co. because it’s damn cold here and
we may leave any
day.)

January 24,
1925

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 - it’s 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 for ‘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.

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 $3750, but before that I was in debt to him and after turning down the $10,000 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
crook
or anything. It’s 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? t 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,

Scott

P-S. I’m returning the proof of the title page, etc. 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 Babbitt and
The Great Gatsby
is weak because there’s no emphasis even ironically on his greatness or lack of it. However let it pass.

Hotel Tiberio Capri, Italy (new address)

circa 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 it’s 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 chapters (VI and VII).

(4) — I’ve improved his first party.

(5) — I’ve broken up his long narrative in Chapter VIII.

This morning I wired you to
hold up the galley of Chapter X.
The correction - and God! it’s 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 une, I hope, begin my new novel.

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

Scott

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

Hotel Tiberio
Capri,

Italy

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, Transylvania, and the PolynesianIslands.

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 Boyd’s 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

D
ear Money.
It ought to be awfully good and there will be no junk in it.

Yours in a Tremble,

Scott

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.

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. 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 say s 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 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

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

Marseille, en route to Paris

circa 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.

First, the title is only fair, rather bad than good.

Second
and most important,
the book contains no important woman character, and women control the fiction market at present. I don’t think the unhappy end matters particularly.