Fitzgerald, F. Scott | The author's first novel, in the rare original jacket

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

This Side of Paradise. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920

8vo. Publisher's dark blue-green cloth, stamped in blind and gilt; minor wear to foot of spine. Original dust-jacket by W.E. Hill; chips with minor loss of text, restoration to folds, closed tear neatly repaired, some rubbing.

First edition of the author’s first novel, in its original jacket.

“It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Fitzgerald’s first portrait of the Jazz Age’s Lost Generation featured the themes that the author would return to and perfect: that of doomed romance among differing classes and love lost among the endless pursuit of upward social status. Still at Princeton when he sent the manuscript (then titled The Romantic Egoist) to Charles Scribner, it was published in 3,000 copies on 26 March 1920, and its immediate success launched Fitzgerald’s career. By the end of the next year the novel had been reprinted 12 times and sold nearly 50,000 copies.

Examples of the jacket in any condition appear only infrequently at auction.

REFERENCES

Bruccoli A5.I.a