Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald
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Through his alcoholism and her mental illness, his career lows and her institutional confinement, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's devotion to each other endured for over twenty-two years. Now, for the first time, we have the story of their love in the couple's own letters. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda consists of more than seventy-five percent previously unpublished or out-of-print letters as well as extensive narrative on the Fitzgeralds' marriage by Fitzgerald scholars Jackson R. Bryer and show more Cathy W. Barks. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda also features a candid introduction by Eleanor Lanahan, the Fitzgeralds' granddaughter. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
One of the better books I've read in the last couple of years, and no doubt my favorite non-fiction book of all time. Zelda wrote the most lyrical and beautiful letters I have ever read. Especially interesting is her evolution from a flighty teen to a woman with serious literary and artistic aspirations, which makes the letters towards the end of the book, when her mental state is deteriorating from letter to letter, especially heartrending. Strongly recommended if you are interested in the Fitzgeralds, 1920s literature, or love.
This was a great read. These are the saddest, most beautiful letters I've ever read. Zelda really was an amazing writer. I think I prefer her letters to her fiction.
Don't read this unless you want your heart broken a million times.
Don't read this unless you want your heart broken a million times.
Possibly the most interesting, most beautiful collection of private letters I've ever been privileged to have read.
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Epistolary Non-Fiction (Letters and Correspondence)
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Author Information
636+ Works 143,686 Members
F(rancis) Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. He was educated at Princeton University and served in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1919, attaining the rank of second lieutenant. In 1920 Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre, a young woman of the upper class, and they had a daughter, Frances. Fitzgerald is regarded as one show more of the finest American writers of the 20th Century. His most notable work was the novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). The novel focused on the themes of the Roaring Twenties and of the loss of innocence and ethics among the nouveau riche. He also made many contributions to American literature in the form of short stories, plays, poetry, music, and letters. Ernest Hemingway, who was greatly influenced by Fitzgerald's short stories, wrote that Fitzgerald's talent was "as fine as the dust on a butterfly's wing." Yet during his lifetime Fitzgerald never had a bestselling novel and, toward the end of his life, he worked sporadically as a screenwriter at motion picture studios in Los Angeles. There he contributed to scripts for such popular films as Winter Carnival and Gone with the Wind. Fitzgerald's work is inseparable from the Roaring 20s. Berenice Bobs Her Hair and A Diamond As Big As The Ritz, are two short stories included in his collections, Tales of the Jazz Age and Flappers and Philosophers. His first novel The Beautiful and Damned was flawed but set up Fitzgerald's major themes of the fleeting nature of youthfulness and innocence, unattainable love, and middle-class aspiration for wealth and respectability, derived from his own courtship of Zelda. This Side of Paradise (1920) was Fitzgerald's first unqualified success. Tender Is the Night, a mature look at the excesses of the exuberant 20s, was published in 1934. Much of Fitzgerald's work has been adapted for film, including Tender is the Night , The Great Gatsby, and Babylon Revisited which was adapted as The Last Time I Saw Paris by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954. The Last Tycoon, adapted by Paramount in 1976, was a work in progress when Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood, California. Fitzgerald is buried in the historic St. Mary's Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
12+ Works 1,539 Members
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda
- Original publication date
- 2002
- People/Characters
- F. Scott Fitzgerald; Zelda Fitzgerald
- Important places*
- Paris, Frankreich
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Members
- 321
- Popularity
- 99,699
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.77)
- Languages
- English, French, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 2
