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8 Erzählungen aus dem Band "Taps at Reveille"
258 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 1935
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About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2,315 books25.6k followersFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
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October 14, 2022
Taps at Reveille was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fourth short story collection. Published in March of 1935, it proved to be the final book of Fitzgerald’s writings published before Fitzgerald’s premature death at age 44 in December 1940.
Taps at Reveille was the largest short story collection that Fitzgerald assembled, containing 18 short stories written between 1927 and 1935. During this period, Fitzgerald struggled to complete his fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, but he wrote many of his finest short stories. Between 1928 and 1931, Fitzgerald wrote 14 short stories about the characters Basil Duke Lee and Josephine Perry. Fitzgerald considered collecting all these stories together as a stand-alone book, and perhaps adding a 15th story where Basil and Josephine would meet. Ultimately, Fitzgerald decided against this, and it wasn’t until 1973 that all of the Basil and Josephine stories were collected in one volume. In my opinion, The Basil and Josephine Stories is one of the finest collections of Fitzgerald’s short stories.
Taps at Reveille contains 8 of the 14 Basil and Josephine stories, and the stories provide an excellent introduction to Fitzgerald as a sharp-eyed social historian. I suspect that young Basil Duke Lee was quite similar to young F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Crazy Sunday” is one of Fitzgerald’s greatest short stories, probably in his top 10, I’d say. Parts of the story are based on a party that was held at the home of producer Irving Thalberg and actress Norma Shearer. Several drinks into the afternoon, Fitzgerald decided to perform a silly song called “Dog” that he had written with Edmund Wilson. His performance went over like a lead balloon. Actor John Gilbert booed Fitzgerald. (Gilbert is referred to in “Crazy Sunday” by his nickname, “The Great Lover.”) It should have been evident to all present that “Dog” was not merely a bad song, but a deliberately bad song:
“Dog, Dog—I like a good dog
Towser or Bowser or Star
Clean sort of pleasure
A four-footed treasure
And faithful as few humans are!
Here, Pup: put your paw up
Roll over dead like a log!
Larger than a rat!
More faithful than a cat!
Dog! Dog! Dog!”
(Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p.132-3)
Personally, I find “Dog” quite funny, although it’s certainly not sophisticated humor. The day after the party, Norma Shearer sent Fitzgerald a telegram: “I thought you were one of the most agreeable persons at our tea.” (Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p.318) In “Crazy Sunday,” the character modeled after Shearer sends a similarly worded telegram.
“The Last of the Belles” is another of my favorite Fitzgerald short stories. Fitzgerald writes so movingly of loss, and the yearning for the past. The last three paragraphs of “The Last of the Belles” are a beautiful example of his evocative style. In the story, the narrator is searching for the Army camp where he was stationed a decade earlier during World War I, but he can find no trace of it:
“I tried to sight on a vaguely familiar clump of trees, but it was growing darker now and I couldn’t be quite sure they were the right trees…No. Upon consideration they didn’t look like the right trees. All I could be sure of was this place that had once been so full of life and effort was gone, as if it had never existed, and that in another month Ailie would be gone, and the South would be empty for me forever.” (p.232)
Fitzgerald set a handful of his short stories in the American South, and “The Last of the Belles” and “Family in the Wind” are fine examples of these stories. “Family in the Wind” is somewhat uncharacteristic of Fitzgerald’s work, as it depicts an alcoholic doctor helping victims of a town that has been devastated by a tornado. Like the best of Fitzgerald’s work, it’s beautifully touching.
Speaking of doctors, there’s another doctor story in the book, “One Interne.” It’s not as successful as “Family in the Wind,” in my opinion. Fitzgerald’s personal life always made it into his fiction in one way or another, and after his wife Zelda suffered mental breakdowns in 1930, 1932, and 1934, doctors and hospitals often appeared in his fiction.
The two most recent short stories in Taps at Reveille were “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville,” which both appeared in Esquire magazine in 1935. Both stories are noticeably shorter than the others in the book, and they differ widely in tone and subject matter from the typical Fitzgerald short story. Both stories reflect the change that occurred in Fitzgerald’s work after Zelda’s third breakdown in 1934. Scott found that he could no longer write the same type of short stories that he used to. I believe that Scott was coming to terms with the fact that Zelda would never be “cured” of her mental illness, and they would never live together again. Whatever youthful illusions Scott was still holding onto were shattered. When he tried to write the same stories about love, class, and money, it didn’t come out right anymore. Fitzgerald was floundering, looking for inspiration anywhere he could find it. His next short story after “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville” was “Shaggy’s Morning,” which was written from the perspective of a dog. Fitzgerald made it clear that “Shaggy’s Morning” was not to be collected in a book, and indeed, it never has been.
“The Fiend” name-checks Stillwater, Minnesota, a town on the St. Croix River, not far from Fitzgerald’s hometown of Saint Paul. The main character in the story is Crenshaw Engels, whose wife and son are murdered. Engels then exacts a kind of revenge on the murderer by visiting him in jail and tormenting him by giving him books with blank pages, or with the ending ripped out. It’s a weird story, and eventually Engels comes to realize his own dependence on these regular visits where he torments the murderer.
“The Night of Chancellorsville” is narrated in the first person by a woman who is turning to prostitution during the Civil War. The narrator and other women are sent on a train car, which gets attacked during the Battle of Chancellorsville. It’s an odd story, almost as if Fitzgerald was setting a challenge to himself to write something far outside of his comfort zone. But I think it’s admirable for Fitzgerald to try something different, and it’s especially bold of him to use first-person narration.
If you removed the author’s name and gave “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville” to 100 people to read, I wonder how many people would guess the stories were by F. Scott Fitzgerald? The stories are a good reminder that authors create many different and varied works, sometimes quite different from the style we’re used to reading.
“A Short Trip Home” is another unusual tale for Fitzgerald, as it deals with the supernatural. I think it’s a very good story. Fitzgerald would sometimes work passages from his short stories into his novels, and then re-write the passage when the story appeared in book form. Fitzgerald used this technique extensively while writing his novel Tender Is the Night, and he was chagrined when a paragraph in “A Short Trip Home” that he had used in Tender slipped through the editing for Taps at Reveille. Fitzgerald wrote a short apology that appears at the bottom of the first page of “A Short Trip Home.” “In a moment of hasty misjudgment a whole paragraph of description was lifted out of this tale where it originated, and properly belongs, and applied to quite a different character in a novel of mine. I have ventured none the less to leave it here, even at the risk of seeming to serve warmed-over fare.” (p.273)
It’s admirable that Fitzgerald felt this responsibility to not repeat himself and use the same passages in his stories. I’d argue that Fitzgerald was too hard on himself, and I strongly doubt anyone reading Taps at Reveille would have noticed the paragraph if he hadn’t alerted readers to it. There are many fine Fitzgerald short stories from this period that he chose not to collect in Taps at Reveille, and I suspect the fact that he borrowed bits for Tender Is the Night is the reason why he left those stories out of Taps. Fortunately, those stories have since been collected in various Fitzgerald anthologies. Some of my favorite stories from this period that didn’t make it into Taps are: “Jacob’s Ladder,” “The Rough Crossing,” “The Swimmers,” “The Bridal Party,” “One Trip Abroad,” and “A New Leaf.” It speaks to the quality of Fitzgerald’s writing that I can look at perhaps his strongest story collection and name six more stories that I think should have been included.
“Babylon Revisited” is the final story in Taps at Reveille, and it’s one of Fitzgerald’s very best. It’s a fine ending to a strong collection by one of America’s finest short story writers.
Taps at Reveille was the largest short story collection that Fitzgerald assembled, containing 18 short stories written between 1927 and 1935. During this period, Fitzgerald struggled to complete his fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, but he wrote many of his finest short stories. Between 1928 and 1931, Fitzgerald wrote 14 short stories about the characters Basil Duke Lee and Josephine Perry. Fitzgerald considered collecting all these stories together as a stand-alone book, and perhaps adding a 15th story where Basil and Josephine would meet. Ultimately, Fitzgerald decided against this, and it wasn’t until 1973 that all of the Basil and Josephine stories were collected in one volume. In my opinion, The Basil and Josephine Stories is one of the finest collections of Fitzgerald’s short stories.
Taps at Reveille contains 8 of the 14 Basil and Josephine stories, and the stories provide an excellent introduction to Fitzgerald as a sharp-eyed social historian. I suspect that young Basil Duke Lee was quite similar to young F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Crazy Sunday” is one of Fitzgerald’s greatest short stories, probably in his top 10, I’d say. Parts of the story are based on a party that was held at the home of producer Irving Thalberg and actress Norma Shearer. Several drinks into the afternoon, Fitzgerald decided to perform a silly song called “Dog” that he had written with Edmund Wilson. His performance went over like a lead balloon. Actor John Gilbert booed Fitzgerald. (Gilbert is referred to in “Crazy Sunday” by his nickname, “The Great Lover.”) It should have been evident to all present that “Dog” was not merely a bad song, but a deliberately bad song:
“Dog, Dog—I like a good dog
Towser or Bowser or Star
Clean sort of pleasure
A four-footed treasure
And faithful as few humans are!
Here, Pup: put your paw up
Roll over dead like a log!
Larger than a rat!
More faithful than a cat!
Dog! Dog! Dog!”
(Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p.132-3)
Personally, I find “Dog” quite funny, although it’s certainly not sophisticated humor. The day after the party, Norma Shearer sent Fitzgerald a telegram: “I thought you were one of the most agreeable persons at our tea.” (Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p.318) In “Crazy Sunday,” the character modeled after Shearer sends a similarly worded telegram.
“The Last of the Belles” is another of my favorite Fitzgerald short stories. Fitzgerald writes so movingly of loss, and the yearning for the past. The last three paragraphs of “The Last of the Belles” are a beautiful example of his evocative style. In the story, the narrator is searching for the Army camp where he was stationed a decade earlier during World War I, but he can find no trace of it:
“I tried to sight on a vaguely familiar clump of trees, but it was growing darker now and I couldn’t be quite sure they were the right trees…No. Upon consideration they didn’t look like the right trees. All I could be sure of was this place that had once been so full of life and effort was gone, as if it had never existed, and that in another month Ailie would be gone, and the South would be empty for me forever.” (p.232)
Fitzgerald set a handful of his short stories in the American South, and “The Last of the Belles” and “Family in the Wind” are fine examples of these stories. “Family in the Wind” is somewhat uncharacteristic of Fitzgerald’s work, as it depicts an alcoholic doctor helping victims of a town that has been devastated by a tornado. Like the best of Fitzgerald’s work, it’s beautifully touching.
Speaking of doctors, there’s another doctor story in the book, “One Interne.” It’s not as successful as “Family in the Wind,” in my opinion. Fitzgerald’s personal life always made it into his fiction in one way or another, and after his wife Zelda suffered mental breakdowns in 1930, 1932, and 1934, doctors and hospitals often appeared in his fiction.
The two most recent short stories in Taps at Reveille were “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville,” which both appeared in Esquire magazine in 1935. Both stories are noticeably shorter than the others in the book, and they differ widely in tone and subject matter from the typical Fitzgerald short story. Both stories reflect the change that occurred in Fitzgerald’s work after Zelda’s third breakdown in 1934. Scott found that he could no longer write the same type of short stories that he used to. I believe that Scott was coming to terms with the fact that Zelda would never be “cured” of her mental illness, and they would never live together again. Whatever youthful illusions Scott was still holding onto were shattered. When he tried to write the same stories about love, class, and money, it didn’t come out right anymore. Fitzgerald was floundering, looking for inspiration anywhere he could find it. His next short story after “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville” was “Shaggy’s Morning,” which was written from the perspective of a dog. Fitzgerald made it clear that “Shaggy’s Morning” was not to be collected in a book, and indeed, it never has been.
“The Fiend” name-checks Stillwater, Minnesota, a town on the St. Croix River, not far from Fitzgerald’s hometown of Saint Paul. The main character in the story is Crenshaw Engels, whose wife and son are murdered. Engels then exacts a kind of revenge on the murderer by visiting him in jail and tormenting him by giving him books with blank pages, or with the ending ripped out. It’s a weird story, and eventually Engels comes to realize his own dependence on these regular visits where he torments the murderer.
“The Night of Chancellorsville” is narrated in the first person by a woman who is turning to prostitution during the Civil War. The narrator and other women are sent on a train car, which gets attacked during the Battle of Chancellorsville. It’s an odd story, almost as if Fitzgerald was setting a challenge to himself to write something far outside of his comfort zone. But I think it’s admirable for Fitzgerald to try something different, and it’s especially bold of him to use first-person narration.
If you removed the author’s name and gave “The Fiend” and “The Night of Chancellorsville” to 100 people to read, I wonder how many people would guess the stories were by F. Scott Fitzgerald? The stories are a good reminder that authors create many different and varied works, sometimes quite different from the style we’re used to reading.
“A Short Trip Home” is another unusual tale for Fitzgerald, as it deals with the supernatural. I think it’s a very good story. Fitzgerald would sometimes work passages from his short stories into his novels, and then re-write the passage when the story appeared in book form. Fitzgerald used this technique extensively while writing his novel Tender Is the Night, and he was chagrined when a paragraph in “A Short Trip Home” that he had used in Tender slipped through the editing for Taps at Reveille. Fitzgerald wrote a short apology that appears at the bottom of the first page of “A Short Trip Home.” “In a moment of hasty misjudgment a whole paragraph of description was lifted out of this tale where it originated, and properly belongs, and applied to quite a different character in a novel of mine. I have ventured none the less to leave it here, even at the risk of seeming to serve warmed-over fare.” (p.273)
It’s admirable that Fitzgerald felt this responsibility to not repeat himself and use the same passages in his stories. I’d argue that Fitzgerald was too hard on himself, and I strongly doubt anyone reading Taps at Reveille would have noticed the paragraph if he hadn’t alerted readers to it. There are many fine Fitzgerald short stories from this period that he chose not to collect in Taps at Reveille, and I suspect the fact that he borrowed bits for Tender Is the Night is the reason why he left those stories out of Taps. Fortunately, those stories have since been collected in various Fitzgerald anthologies. Some of my favorite stories from this period that didn’t make it into Taps are: “Jacob’s Ladder,” “The Rough Crossing,” “The Swimmers,” “The Bridal Party,” “One Trip Abroad,” and “A New Leaf.” It speaks to the quality of Fitzgerald’s writing that I can look at perhaps his strongest story collection and name six more stories that I think should have been included.
“Babylon Revisited” is the final story in Taps at Reveille, and it’s one of Fitzgerald’s very best. It’s a fine ending to a strong collection by one of America’s finest short story writers.
February 24, 2016
So much better than Tender is the Night. This collection of short stories has a clear unifying Fitzgerald-y theme: he writes about lost souls. Whatever their sin (or sins) of choice is (or are), whether it is something they think they've left behind or not, it actively consumes their present. This book left me thinking Fitzgerald probably struggled with both depression and substance abuse.
March 24, 2019
Includes the best Basil and Josephine stories. The other stories often highlight the inevitable but temporary nature of disappointment.
March 14, 2021
The fourth and final short story collection published by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) during his lifetime, released shortly after Tender is the Night (1934).
Book Review: Taps at Reveille is an uneven collection, as were Fitzgerald's short stories. Often he wrote simply to pay the bills, so although his writing is of consistently high quality, some stories have more to say than others. Accordingly, Fitzgerald's four original short story collections (especially All the Sad Young Men and this one) are rarer than repackaged "best of" editions. Additionally, numerous posthumous, rearranged collections have been issued: The Pat Hobby Stories, The Basil and Josephine Stories, I'd Die for You (and other lost stories), and comprehensive volumes edited by Malcolm Cowley (1951 - 28 stories) or Matthew Bruccoli (1989 - 43 stories). The 18 pieces in Taps at Reveille explore his themes of disappointment and regret, sorrow and failure, of having to pay for the good times, of longing for an unobtainable perfect love. The collection begins with a selection of eight YA stories exploring Fitzgerald's adolescence through separate alter egos Basil Lee and Josephine Perry (who never meet). Fitzgerald relates to women as well as any male author. The remaining stories are diverse, including ghost stories, historical visions, the bizarre, and his more typical romantic efforts. "The Last of the Belles" and "Babylon Revisited" standout in this collection. The unusual title refers to military bugle calls: Reveille is played at sunrise to wake the troops, Taps is played at lights out. The somber melody of Taps played at the beginning of the day seems a foreboding of what's to come. The cover of my 1971 Scribners edition must be one of the least attractive covers ever printed. Fitzgerald's final collection isn't as good as his second, Tales of the Jazz Age, but is still significant, the last book he saw published. [3½★]
Book Review: Taps at Reveille is an uneven collection, as were Fitzgerald's short stories. Often he wrote simply to pay the bills, so although his writing is of consistently high quality, some stories have more to say than others. Accordingly, Fitzgerald's four original short story collections (especially All the Sad Young Men and this one) are rarer than repackaged "best of" editions. Additionally, numerous posthumous, rearranged collections have been issued: The Pat Hobby Stories, The Basil and Josephine Stories, I'd Die for You (and other lost stories), and comprehensive volumes edited by Malcolm Cowley (1951 - 28 stories) or Matthew Bruccoli (1989 - 43 stories). The 18 pieces in Taps at Reveille explore his themes of disappointment and regret, sorrow and failure, of having to pay for the good times, of longing for an unobtainable perfect love. The collection begins with a selection of eight YA stories exploring Fitzgerald's adolescence through separate alter egos Basil Lee and Josephine Perry (who never meet). Fitzgerald relates to women as well as any male author. The remaining stories are diverse, including ghost stories, historical visions, the bizarre, and his more typical romantic efforts. "The Last of the Belles" and "Babylon Revisited" standout in this collection. The unusual title refers to military bugle calls: Reveille is played at sunrise to wake the troops, Taps is played at lights out. The somber melody of Taps played at the beginning of the day seems a foreboding of what's to come. The cover of my 1971 Scribners edition must be one of the least attractive covers ever printed. Fitzgerald's final collection isn't as good as his second, Tales of the Jazz Age, but is still significant, the last book he saw published. [3½★]
December 21, 2017
This collection of short stories is a classic of F Scott Fitzgerald . I have grown accustomed to his work.
This is the last of his oeuvre.
18 classic stories.
This is the last of his oeuvre.
18 classic stories.
Want to read
January 6, 2026Annotated book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One
September 29, 2016
Deși diferite ca subiecte și lungime, tematica comună a celor 18 povestiri pare a fi, cu mici excepții, cea a erosului și a artei socializării, cu bârfele și încurcăturile de rigoare. Fiecare zi aduce cu sine speranța unei noi cuceriri, iar fiecare aventură deșănțată epuizează și contribuie la strivirea spiritelor micilor debutanți în societate. În fond, Fitzgerald nu face altceva decât să sintetizeze specificul unei epoci, iar anii ’20 au fost despre plăceri bahice și nebunia modernismului tehnologic.
(fragmente din recenzia completă: http://www.bookishstyle.ro/petrecere-...)
(fragmente din recenzia completă: http://www.bookishstyle.ro/petrecere-...)
June 28, 2020
I didn't know how to rate this book. I was stuck between 3 or 4 stars. However, after I read the last story, I decided to stick to 4 stars.
I admit it, some stories are better than others, but some of them are absolutely heartbreaking. "Babylon revisited" broke my heart into so many pieces. Absolutely gorgeous collection. However, I still prefer Scott's novels rather than his short stories.
I admit it, some stories are better than others, but some of them are absolutely heartbreaking. "Babylon revisited" broke my heart into so many pieces. Absolutely gorgeous collection. However, I still prefer Scott's novels rather than his short stories.
January 22, 2018
Here's some background information for anyone interested. I wrote this for a class last semester and thought I'd share.
F. Scott Fitzgerald published his final short story collection, Taps at Reveille, on March 20th 1935 at the age of 38 (Hall Petry 143). Despite Fitzgerald’s fame being in slow decline ever since 1920 when he first arrived on the scene with This Side of Paradise, here, in 1935, he was at the height of his literary powers. Fitzgerald once wrote, “The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances keeping me from it” (My Lost City 3). Penning this collection had been no different. He was under immense pressure; paying for Zelda’s hospitalization due to her breakdowns, working on his fourth novel, Tender is the Night, which took 9 years, suffering from alcoholism, and traveling nonstop, from the French Riviera to Hollywood, Delaware, Paris, Italy, Algeria, Switzerland, Minnesota, Alabama, Baltimore, New York City, and Asheville, N.C. (Hall Petry 143, 144).
Firstly, the title, which even Fitzgerald feared may cause confusion, refers to “taps” as the “bugle call to put out lights in army quarters” and “reveille” as “a military wake-up call” (Tredell, Hall Petry 152). The title implies, to me, a waking dream motif and disillusionment.
The 18 stories within Taps at Reveille have been divided into three categories; 5 of 9 Basil Lee stories, 3 of 5 Josephine Perry stories, and, lastly, 10 standalone tales including the much lauded “Babylon Revisited”.
In the Basil Lee stories, Fitzgerald is “re-examining actual events in his youth,” mainly surrounding his upbringing in St. Paul, Minnesota and Buffalo, New York, “in an attempt to understand his adult life” (Hall Petry 90, 148). It’s a coming-of-age tale about the naively conceited, yet still sympathetic, Basil Lee navigating his unfavorable life at St. Regis School in Eastchester during winter and enjoying his more popular life during the summers home, in his grassy neighborhood of “a large Middle-Western city" (Fitzgerald, Taps 1, 5, 30). In the course of these 5 stories, Basil writes down secrets in his notebook he and his friends call “The Book of Scandal”, arranges a play he wrote with his friends about a burglar called “the captured shadow”, tries to emulate the other boys, namely Hubert Blair, and dreams about driving a car, all-the-while chasing girls like Imogen Bissel (Fitzgerald, Taps 2, 4, 17, 63, 90). Alice Hall Petry, a Fitzgerald scholar, has classified Fitzgerald’s childhood, to no one’s contention, as “intensely unhappy”, however, Basil Lee’s is “accepting, stable, [and] functional” (Hall Petry 161, 174). This, I think, shows Fitzgerald’s self-awareness to probe at his past not only with regret but with reverence and honesty. Fitzgerald exposes Basil Lee’s flaws while, this time around, making him likeable, as opposed to Amory Blaine in This Side of Paradise.
Josephine Perry represents a Fitzgerald on his way toward “emotional bankruptcy”, expressed “in terms of love”, i.e. through Josephine dealing with relationships, or disposal thereof (Hall Petry 161, 162). Josephine is a debutante from Chicago, very similar to Ginevra King, a crush from Fitzgerald’s youth whose father forbid from marrying any “poor boys” (Fitzgerald, Taps 135). The year is 1914 and Josephine ditches a boy named Travis she’s been sneaking around with and steals the attention of Anthony Harker away from her jealous sister, Constance (Fitzgerald, Taps 134, 138). We also follow Josephine on summer vacation as her parents decide to send her to Island Farms resort in the middle of nowhere instead of the popular Lake Forest to try to curb her flapperdom (Fitzgerald, Taps 155). After she completes prep school she goes looking for love at college dances (Fitzgerald, Taps 185). These stories really show off Fitzgerald’s insight into the mind of a teenage girl and male-female attraction, most likely observed through Zelda and his own daughter, Scottie, growing into a teen.
The characters and plots in the standalone stories indicate a matured Fitzgerald who was rightly “focused far more on the present and future” with his daughter than on repeating the past and attempting to reclaim the honeymoon phase in his marriage, as he was in the writing of The Great Gatsby (Hall Petry 186, 187). Fitzgerald and his characters break through disillusionment, realizing it’s an “inevitable part of life”, and make atonements to right their wrongs (Hall Petry 161, 187). The prose is eloquent and beautiful and almost always in third person, past tense. Among the best stories, the must-reads, are “Family in the Wind”—about a drunken doctor who comes out of retirement to aid the wounded and shelter an orphaned girl after a pair of tornadoes decimates his southern town, “A Short Trip Home”—told in first person, about a college boy who comes back to St. Paul on Christmas break and stops his friend, Ellen, afflicted by Stockholm syndrome, from being abducted by a sociopath, and lastly, “Babylon Revisited”—where a wealthy Charlie Wales returns to Paris to retrieve his daughter, Honoria, from his sister-in-law by proving he now commits himself to just one drink a day. “Babylon Revisited” represents the hangover of the 1920s, the end of Fitzgerald’s literal 20s, and the stock market crash of ’29.
The first and only printing of Taps at Reveille during Fitzgerald’s lifetime ordered “5,100 copies”, of which “sold less than 3,000” at $2.50 per book (Hall Petry 152, 153). Published individually, though, before appearing in this collection, the stories earned $80,000, so the effort wasn’t a total loss (Hall Petry 152).
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Taps at Reveille. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935.
---. My Lost City. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Hall Petry, Alice. Fitzgerald’s Craft of Short Fiction: The Collected Stories 1920-1935. UMI
Research Press, 1989.
Tredell, Nicolas. "Taps at Reveille". The Literary Encyclopedia. LE, 20 August 2010,
https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.p.... Accessed 26 October 2017.
F. Scott Fitzgerald published his final short story collection, Taps at Reveille, on March 20th 1935 at the age of 38 (Hall Petry 143). Despite Fitzgerald’s fame being in slow decline ever since 1920 when he first arrived on the scene with This Side of Paradise, here, in 1935, he was at the height of his literary powers. Fitzgerald once wrote, “The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances keeping me from it” (My Lost City 3). Penning this collection had been no different. He was under immense pressure; paying for Zelda’s hospitalization due to her breakdowns, working on his fourth novel, Tender is the Night, which took 9 years, suffering from alcoholism, and traveling nonstop, from the French Riviera to Hollywood, Delaware, Paris, Italy, Algeria, Switzerland, Minnesota, Alabama, Baltimore, New York City, and Asheville, N.C. (Hall Petry 143, 144).
Firstly, the title, which even Fitzgerald feared may cause confusion, refers to “taps” as the “bugle call to put out lights in army quarters” and “reveille” as “a military wake-up call” (Tredell, Hall Petry 152). The title implies, to me, a waking dream motif and disillusionment.
The 18 stories within Taps at Reveille have been divided into three categories; 5 of 9 Basil Lee stories, 3 of 5 Josephine Perry stories, and, lastly, 10 standalone tales including the much lauded “Babylon Revisited”.
In the Basil Lee stories, Fitzgerald is “re-examining actual events in his youth,” mainly surrounding his upbringing in St. Paul, Minnesota and Buffalo, New York, “in an attempt to understand his adult life” (Hall Petry 90, 148). It’s a coming-of-age tale about the naively conceited, yet still sympathetic, Basil Lee navigating his unfavorable life at St. Regis School in Eastchester during winter and enjoying his more popular life during the summers home, in his grassy neighborhood of “a large Middle-Western city" (Fitzgerald, Taps 1, 5, 30). In the course of these 5 stories, Basil writes down secrets in his notebook he and his friends call “The Book of Scandal”, arranges a play he wrote with his friends about a burglar called “the captured shadow”, tries to emulate the other boys, namely Hubert Blair, and dreams about driving a car, all-the-while chasing girls like Imogen Bissel (Fitzgerald, Taps 2, 4, 17, 63, 90). Alice Hall Petry, a Fitzgerald scholar, has classified Fitzgerald’s childhood, to no one’s contention, as “intensely unhappy”, however, Basil Lee’s is “accepting, stable, [and] functional” (Hall Petry 161, 174). This, I think, shows Fitzgerald’s self-awareness to probe at his past not only with regret but with reverence and honesty. Fitzgerald exposes Basil Lee’s flaws while, this time around, making him likeable, as opposed to Amory Blaine in This Side of Paradise.
Josephine Perry represents a Fitzgerald on his way toward “emotional bankruptcy”, expressed “in terms of love”, i.e. through Josephine dealing with relationships, or disposal thereof (Hall Petry 161, 162). Josephine is a debutante from Chicago, very similar to Ginevra King, a crush from Fitzgerald’s youth whose father forbid from marrying any “poor boys” (Fitzgerald, Taps 135). The year is 1914 and Josephine ditches a boy named Travis she’s been sneaking around with and steals the attention of Anthony Harker away from her jealous sister, Constance (Fitzgerald, Taps 134, 138). We also follow Josephine on summer vacation as her parents decide to send her to Island Farms resort in the middle of nowhere instead of the popular Lake Forest to try to curb her flapperdom (Fitzgerald, Taps 155). After she completes prep school she goes looking for love at college dances (Fitzgerald, Taps 185). These stories really show off Fitzgerald’s insight into the mind of a teenage girl and male-female attraction, most likely observed through Zelda and his own daughter, Scottie, growing into a teen.
The characters and plots in the standalone stories indicate a matured Fitzgerald who was rightly “focused far more on the present and future” with his daughter than on repeating the past and attempting to reclaim the honeymoon phase in his marriage, as he was in the writing of The Great Gatsby (Hall Petry 186, 187). Fitzgerald and his characters break through disillusionment, realizing it’s an “inevitable part of life”, and make atonements to right their wrongs (Hall Petry 161, 187). The prose is eloquent and beautiful and almost always in third person, past tense. Among the best stories, the must-reads, are “Family in the Wind”—about a drunken doctor who comes out of retirement to aid the wounded and shelter an orphaned girl after a pair of tornadoes decimates his southern town, “A Short Trip Home”—told in first person, about a college boy who comes back to St. Paul on Christmas break and stops his friend, Ellen, afflicted by Stockholm syndrome, from being abducted by a sociopath, and lastly, “Babylon Revisited”—where a wealthy Charlie Wales returns to Paris to retrieve his daughter, Honoria, from his sister-in-law by proving he now commits himself to just one drink a day. “Babylon Revisited” represents the hangover of the 1920s, the end of Fitzgerald’s literal 20s, and the stock market crash of ’29.
The first and only printing of Taps at Reveille during Fitzgerald’s lifetime ordered “5,100 copies”, of which “sold less than 3,000” at $2.50 per book (Hall Petry 152, 153). Published individually, though, before appearing in this collection, the stories earned $80,000, so the effort wasn’t a total loss (Hall Petry 152).
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Taps at Reveille. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935.
---. My Lost City. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Hall Petry, Alice. Fitzgerald’s Craft of Short Fiction: The Collected Stories 1920-1935. UMI
Research Press, 1989.
Tredell, Nicolas. "Taps at Reveille". The Literary Encyclopedia. LE, 20 August 2010,
https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.p.... Accessed 26 October 2017.
July 16, 2022
This is the last short story collection published during Fitzgerald's lifetime, with stories selected by the author. The Basil and Josephine stories are witty and charming, but they are overshadowed by three Fitzgerald masterpieces included here: "Crazy Sunday," "The Last of the Belles," and the utterly heartbreaking "Babylon Revisited." A couple of the other pieces are less than stellar, but there is always, at some point in every Fitzgerald story, a shining moment that could only come from someone of his considerable talent. I enjoyed re-reading all of them.
January 25, 2019
Most Fitzgerald story collections are a bit uneven, but in the main, these were good. If I remember correctly, the Basil and Josephine stories were written particularly for magazines, so that might explain style triumphing over substance. It is always interesting to see how much he lifted wholesale from his own life and put into his work.
December 24, 2019
Die ersten Geschichten waren zeitlos und beschrieben die Weilt von Teenagern, wie sie auch noch heute empfinden könnten.
Die Geschichten um Basil hatten einen leicht autobiographischen Touch und waren anstrengender zu lesen. Im Ganzen eine brauchbare Lektüre für Zwischendurch.
Die Geschichten um Basil hatten einen leicht autobiographischen Touch und waren anstrengender zu lesen. Im Ganzen eine brauchbare Lektüre für Zwischendurch.
March 2, 2022
I adore this book.
September 22, 2025
Fitz is the best. He's like pizza -- even when it's not a "Gatsby" level meal, it's still *pizza*. Lines for days, totally worth reading, and the best writer of this or any generation.
January 15, 2016
This is the best collection of FSF short stories I have read, with only All the Sad Young Men remaining unread. The stories take place in back woods Alabama, New York, St. Paul, Monte Carlo, Lausanne, Virginia, Georgia, Algeria, Switzerland, London, and Baltimore. This Cambridge edition has an excellent 22 page Introduction by editor James L. West III, and some very helpful endnotes tied to page number and line number. There are even 18 pages of editing notes for the real Fitzgerald afficionados. Cambridge University Press was even kind enough to include 9 additional stories that were not in the original collection. The stories, as printed, contain all of FSF's editorial corrections, most of which did not get included in the original version.
May 31, 2013
I died a death when I read that this is the last of Scott Fitzgerald's oeuvre. Can it really be so? I have grown accustomed to his work appearing on Kindle, and expect there to be always something round the corner. Well, if this is the last one, let's make it an experience to remember.
August 25, 2016
When she looked at him she saw many things - a bright day outside, with crowds of people hurrying through the streets; a new limousine that waited at the curb for two people with good new clothes, who got in and went somewhere that was just like New York, only away, and more fun.
February 22, 2014
Boring. But very good at understanding psychology of teenagers.
Want to read
June 16, 2014Want to read the new unedited book alongside the original. See: "F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories to be reissued with sex, drugs and dirty words put back in" by Scott Kaufman, 5/2/14 in The Raw Story.
February 23, 2015
As all short stories, some were brilliant, some were boring. But Scott Fitzgerald's prose just stays the same, a mix between happy and sad. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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