F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Stories

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This handsome jacketed hardback brings together the celebrated short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald - one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.



An icon of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald's tales combine the excitement of the new opportunities the 1920s brought with a tinge of melancholy recalling the Lost Generation who had fought in World War I. By turns humorous, breathtaking and thoughtful, the stories in this collection rightly deserve their reputation as classics.

This collection includes such famous stories as:
- Bernice Bobs Her Hair
- May Day
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
- and many more

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classic Mysteries and Marvels series brings together thrilling short stories from classic fiction, including spine-chilling ghost stories, gripping detective fiction and cosmic horror. These hardback anthologies with foil-embossed cover designs make wonderful gifts for any classic lover.

Genres: Fiction

384 pages, Hardcover

Published March 7, 2023

About the author

Francis 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.

Reviews

[Brittany McCann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was worth reading, but there was a lot to be desired. Many of the endings were abrupt, and other issues were the time period it was written in. Overall, I give the collection a 3 star rating.

Tarquin of Cheapside: 2 stars
Best Quote
"He read at wine, he read in bed,
He read aloud, had he the breath,
His every thought was with the dead,
And so he read himself to death."

Mayday 3.5-4 Stars The closing paragraph was FIRE! Best ending in the entire book
Best Quotes
"You've got to look at things as they are. If you haven't got money you've got to work and stay away from women."

Head and Shoulders: Ironic. But he was a jerk, so I'm glad it ended that way. 3 Stars

Cut Glass Bowl So far my favorite of them all. Dark and Creepy and messed up. Fitzgerald should have done more dark suspense. 5 Stars

Porcelain and Pink Mostly dialogue, mostly dumb. 1.5 stars

The Ice Palace: parts were great, the imagery was excellent, but others were disjointed. Ending sucked. 3.5 Stars

Benediction: not bad but it got weird and then left zero explanation. 3.5 stars

Bernice bobs her hair: Mean girls in a society setting. 4 stars
Best Quotes:
Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves from which we hide.

"You have no ease of manner. Why? Because you're never sure about your personal appearance. When a girl feels that she's perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That's charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget the more charm you have."

The Jelly Bean 3.5 Stars. No good deed goes unpunished I guess hahaha"
Out of nowhere Quote
"All she needs is to be turned up and spanked for six months and then to be married off to an old-fashioned cavalry captain." -Watch our your male chauvinism is showing

Winter Dreams-Judy's escapades 3 Stars

A Diamond As Big as the Ritz: Man, racism is real here... I wasn't a big fan of anything in this one, from the spoiled girl to how anyone was treated or talked about. 2 stars.
Quotes
"Are we in Canada?"
"We are not. We're in the middle of the Montana Rockies."

"There were side issues of course-he evaded the surveys, he married a Virginia lady, but whom he had a single son, and he was compelled, due to a series of unfortunate complications, to murder his brother""

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I have wanted to read this one since I watched the movie and found out that F. Scott Fitzgerald had written it. It was a lot more depressing and negative, with Benjamin not having many redeeming qualities. I prefer the movie. 3 Stars

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were just bizarre, and they all tend to have abrupt endings. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a great talent, and that is evidenced in these stories. I felt like I was often struggling to comprehend what he was saying. He had an absolute talent for portraying the moral vacuousness of the wealthy. I will be thinking about some of these stories for some time to come. Some of the stories that were outstanding were: The Rich Boy, The Cut Glass Bowl, Hot and Cold Blood, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. It was interesting to read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as I hadn't known that it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who had written it.

[Emma Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to push myself to finish this book and I only did because it was the last book on my shelf to read. A few of the stories, I really enjoyed but mostly they mildly annoyed me. There's only so much I can read about the idiotic rich making bad decisions with their money and relationships.

[Ryan Woroniecki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two short stories. Really liked the first, the second was meh.