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The Popular Girl
In the lead story of this collection, society girl Yanci Bowman is enchanted to meet Scott Kimberly, a very rich and very eligible young man. Yet no sooner have they met than her drunken father dies unexpectedly, leaving her impoverished. Too ashamed to admit to Scott her desperate state, she instead creates a fanciful world full of parties and holidays, friends and suitors, to convince him she is still the popular girl he first met. However, as her charade grows ever more fragile, she endangers their friendship and her very hope of salvation. Fitzgerald's beautifully drawn exploration of the interdependency of love and money captures in perfect detail the concerns that pervade so many of his stories.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
7 people are currently reading
364 people want to read
About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2,099 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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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 20, 2015
I began reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but then I developed a bad cold and decided to take a small break from Joyce until clearness and sharpness returned to my head. Of course, I couldn't simply stop reading; and who else would I turn to, but Fitzgerald? This is one of the very last story collections of his that I hadn't yet read. It includes five pieces: The Popular Girl, Love in the Night, The Swimmers, A New Leaf, and What a Handsome Pair!. Bright and melancholic, beautiful and tragic, these are some of his better stories.
She saw him the first day on board, and then her heart sank into her shoes as she realized at last how much she wanted him. No matter what his past was, no matter what he had done. Which was not to say that she would ever let him know, but only that he moved her chemically more than anyone she had ever met, that all other men seemed pale beside him. - A New Leaf
September 22, 2013
The Popular Girl is one of my favorite short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It tells the story of Yanci, a beautiful Southern girl who realizes she is alone after her father dies. She decides to go after a man named Scott, who is well off and would do anything to have her. However, Yanci, a typical FSF female character, needs to make it hard on herself first. She decide to pretend she can afford living at the Ritz for a few weeks and lies about multiple engagements so she can impress Scott. In the end, everything works out in her favor.
January 25, 2025
Book Review – The Popular Girl by F.Scott Fitzgerald
Hespersus Press - £7.99 – ISBN 1-84391-403-4 – 136 Pages
‘The Popular Girl’ collects together 5 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lesser-known short stories. Like his better-known works ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Tender is the Night’ and ‘The Last Tycoon’ these stories are rich in character, with an elegant structure, and look at love and money, and how both gaining and losing each of them can have an impact on people’s lives.
‘The Popular Girl’ looks at the façade built up by Yanci Bowman, brought low and impoverished by her Father’s untimely death, and her efforts to impress Scott Kimberly, the wealthy and handsome man she has just met. She wants to prove to him that she is still ‘The Popular Girl’ he first met, making up friendships and parties that she can’t afford to go to.
‘Love in the Night’ looks at the life of Val, what it is like to be half American and half Russian, how this has affected his life, and falling in love, and how his parent’s marriage is not how he might have imagined it to be.
The remaining three stories ‘The Swimmers’, ‘A New Leaf’, and ‘What a Handsome Pair!’ are worth the read, and examine similar themes and ideas.
This is a collection that is well worth looking out for, to find some lesser-known work by one of America’s undisputed greatest 20th Century writers.
Hespersus Press - £7.99 – ISBN 1-84391-403-4 – 136 Pages
‘The Popular Girl’ collects together 5 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lesser-known short stories. Like his better-known works ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Tender is the Night’ and ‘The Last Tycoon’ these stories are rich in character, with an elegant structure, and look at love and money, and how both gaining and losing each of them can have an impact on people’s lives.
‘The Popular Girl’ looks at the façade built up by Yanci Bowman, brought low and impoverished by her Father’s untimely death, and her efforts to impress Scott Kimberly, the wealthy and handsome man she has just met. She wants to prove to him that she is still ‘The Popular Girl’ he first met, making up friendships and parties that she can’t afford to go to.
‘Love in the Night’ looks at the life of Val, what it is like to be half American and half Russian, how this has affected his life, and falling in love, and how his parent’s marriage is not how he might have imagined it to be.
The remaining three stories ‘The Swimmers’, ‘A New Leaf’, and ‘What a Handsome Pair!’ are worth the read, and examine similar themes and ideas.
This is a collection that is well worth looking out for, to find some lesser-known work by one of America’s undisputed greatest 20th Century writers.
October 25, 2015
This collection of five Short Stories focused on the possibility of defeat up till the last paragraph, you are unsure if the protagonist is going to fulfill their dream or fail miserably. Stories are a typical Fitzgerald standard of tight writing: every word counts and moves the story forward to its conclusion. Two short stories were written before The Great Gatsby and the other three afterwords, but you see underlying themes and plot devices that he perfected in TGG throughout all of the stories: Light, water and the American Dream.
August 12, 2008
Small collection of short stories/novellas by the master.
The title story is almost in a league with The Great Gatsby in its tale of the rise and fall of a society figure. The other stories don't quite reach the same intensity but are well worth a read.
The title story is almost in a league with The Great Gatsby in its tale of the rise and fall of a society figure. The other stories don't quite reach the same intensity but are well worth a read.
October 2, 2012
Written by F Scott Fitzgerald, actually, not Helen Dunmore... Enjoyable collection of short stories in FSF´s typically opulent style.
October 17, 2013
Good, enjoyed these story stories better than Fitzgerald's novels, probably because they were all entertaining and didn't go on. I enjoyed the fact that there was a twist at the end of each story.
August 23, 2023
In her foreword, Helen Dunmore unwittingly damns Fitzgerald by recalling Hemingway's description of him thinking of the rich as "their own separate race"; that level of privilege is to be found in these stories with their titles like "The Popular Girl" or "The Rich Boy". An unfortunate showcase of Fitzgerald's worst tendencies
January 4, 2025
Fitzgerald is a wonderful writer and can describe hot people like no other. His prose always feels like a holiday, even when it’s about alcoholics headed towards disaster. And would you believe it, 3 out of those 5 short stories had happy endings! Good job, Scott. I appreciate it when he lowers the curtain right before love succumbs to its inevitable Fitzgeraldian doom.
September 11, 2019
Interesting reading. Manners, deportment, clothes, putting on a good show, with a little Mark Twain twist. I am so glad I did not live in those times.
November 7, 2025
oh I love I LOVE you f Scott Fitzgerald and I am just now realising I do not know your first name but I love you all the same extremely x
March 17, 2014
Another classic and another name that is forever popping up in every 'how to write' book under the sun, so when I found this in my local library I knew I had to read it. Five short stories written from 1922 to 1932, originally published in the Saturday Evening Post. A newspaper, I presume, somewhere in the United States.
The first three stories in this collection are quaint and romantic and the perfect escapism for anybody that loves to get lost in a book. My personal favourite is probably the second, entitled 'Love in the Night'. The last two are perhaps slightly more dull but still worth the read. I like the way that these tiny glimpses of life in the twenties are so accessible and easy to read, considering they were written so long ago. There are no car chases or murderers in this one, just some good, simple honest story telling.
Enjoyed
Maybe I should read more from F.Scott Fitzgerald. This collection contains a small biography and a fascinating foreword by Helen Dunmore.
The first three stories in this collection are quaint and romantic and the perfect escapism for anybody that loves to get lost in a book. My personal favourite is probably the second, entitled 'Love in the Night'. The last two are perhaps slightly more dull but still worth the read. I like the way that these tiny glimpses of life in the twenties are so accessible and easy to read, considering they were written so long ago. There are no car chases or murderers in this one, just some good, simple honest story telling.
Enjoyed
Maybe I should read more from F.Scott Fitzgerald. This collection contains a small biography and a fascinating foreword by Helen Dunmore.
April 16, 2011
What a wonderfully written collection of short stories. I have only read one other by F. Scott Fitzgerald and that was The Great Gatsby about 10 years ago, which I enjoyed at the time but confess that I cannot remember much about it; having now read these short stories, I am keen to pick it up again. I enjoyed how Fitzgerald's stories developed so quickly, there were no heavy descriptive paragraphs, it was a simple case of: Girl meets Boy, a mutual attraction is formed, someone dies, it all works out, the end - albeit in much more eloquent language and despite the lack of detail, I was still able to visualise the characters and sympathise with them in their turn, which I think shows the sign of a good writer. From this collection, my favourite was definitely "The Popular Girl", you really feel for Yanci in her plight and can't help but hope for a happy ending - read it and find out what happens!!
partially-read
May 26, 2009I really enjoyed the three stories I was able to read; however, in this edition (or at least in my copy of it), one set of pages was repeated, and one set was left out, which meant that the second half of the third story and the first half of the fourth story were missing. From what I read though, classic Fitzgerald.
Though the cover copy compares the main character in the title story to Daisy in Gatsby, Yanci Bowman is more inclined to take control of her situation. From the beginning, she is of necessity wily and crafty and clever, and no less so when she is rendered financially helpless. In a nice romantic ending, Scott steps in to save her.
Though the cover copy compares the main character in the title story to Daisy in Gatsby, Yanci Bowman is more inclined to take control of her situation. From the beginning, she is of necessity wily and crafty and clever, and no less so when she is rendered financially helpless. In a nice romantic ending, Scott steps in to save her.
May 2, 2013
i liked it
March 28, 2014
I can't get enough of these fantastic short stories!
September 25, 2020
3.5 stars. Quick and lovely story.
#popsugarreadingchallenge2020 (advanced prompt #5)
#popsugarreadingchallenge2020 (advanced prompt #5)
May 3, 2017
Not one of his best, but still highly enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews