A Life in Letters

In this new collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's letters, edited by leading Fitzgerald scholar and biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, we see through his own words the artistic and emotional maturation of one of America's most enduring and elegant authors. A Life in Letters is the most comprehensive volume of Fitzgerald's letters -- many of them appearing in print for the first time. The fullness of the selection and the chronological arrangement make this collection the closest thing to an autobiography that Fitzgerald ever wrote.

While many readers are familiar with Fitzgerald's legendary "jazz age" social life and his friendships with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, and other famous authors, few are aware of his writings about his life and his views on writing. Letters to his editor Maxwell Perkins illustrate the development of Fitzgerald's literary sensibility; those to his friend and competitor Ernest Hemingway reveal their difficult relationship. The most poignant letters here were written to his wife, Zelda, from the time of their courtship in Montgomery, Alabama, during World War I to her extended convalescence in a sanatorium near Asheville, North Carolina. Fitzgerald is by turns affectionate and proud in his letters to his daughter, Scottie, at college in the East while he was struggling in Hollywood.

For readers who think primarily of Fitzgerald as a hard-drinking playboy for whom writing was effortless, these letters show his serious, painstaking concerns with creating realistic, durable art.

I do recommend reading one of Fitzgerald's many biographies prior to reading his letters, as it is a fascinating exercise comparing Fitzgerald's interpretation/rationalization of an event with a third party's.


Fitzgerald as only Fitzgerald knew him.   February 18, 1999
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you want to gain insight into the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald then seek no further. This amazing compilation of Fitzgerald's correspondences to family, friends, business associates and acquaintances portrays the man and the writer in a way no biographer could imagine. In his letters can be clearly seen Fitzgerald the literary genius, Fitzgerald the loving husband and father as well as Fitzgerald the sycophant and Fitzgerald the tortured and insecure neurotic.The genesis and the demise of one of the most fascinating men of his time eloquently presented in his own words.


Fitzgerald as only Fitzgerald knew him.   February 18, 1999
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

If you want to gain insight into the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald then seek no further. This amazing compilation of Fitzgerald's correspondences to family, friends, business associates and acquaintances portrays the man and the writer in a way no biographer could imagine. In his letters can be clearly seen Fitzgerald the literary genius, Fitzgerald the loving husband and father as well as Fitzgerald the sycophant and Fitzgerald the tortured and insecure neurotic.The genesis and the demise of one of the most fascinating men of his time eloquently presented in his own words.