All the Sad Young Men
.jpg) First edition | |
| Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Cleo Damianakes |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
Publication date | February 1926[1] |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
All the Sad Young Men is a collection of short fiction by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The stories originally appeared independently in popular literary journals and were first collected in February 1926 by Charles Scribner's Sons.[1][2][3]
Stories
[edit]The original periodical publication and date are indicated below.[2][3]
- "The Rich Boy" (Redbook, January/February 1926)
- "Winter Dreams" ( Metropolitan, December 1922)
- "The Baby Party" (Hearst's International Cosmopolitan, February 1925)
- "Absolution" (American Mercury, June 1924)
- "Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les" (McCall's, July 1924)
- "The Adjuster" (American Mercury, 1926)
- "Hot and Cold Blood" (Hearst's International Cosmopolitan, August, 1923)
- "The Sensible Thing" (Liberty, July 15, 1924)
- "Gretchen's Forty Winks" (Saturday Evening Post, March 15, 1924)
Background
[edit]In a letter to Scribner editor-in-chief Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald wrote that "seven of the stories deal with young men of my generation in rather unhappy moods" to justify the title of the collection.[4] Biographer Kenneth Eble notes that the volume's title reflects with precision the final years of Fitzgerald's youth in the late 1920s: "All the Sad Young Men captures in a phrase the feeling he had in losing the most vibrant experiences of his life before age took them away."[5]
Fitzgerald wrote the stories at a time of disillusionment. He was in financial difficulty, he believed his wife Zelda to be romantically involved with another man, she had suffered a series of physical illnesses, and his play The Vegetable had been a failure.[6]
Reception
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Upon publication—and somewhat belying the notion that Fitzgerald's most famous novel had not been enthusiastically received—The New York Times wrote, "The publication of this volume of short stories might easily have been an anti-climax after the perfection and success of The Great Gatsby of last Spring. A novel so widely praised — by people whose recognition counts — is stiff competition. It is even something of a problem for a reviewer to find new and different words to properly grace the occasion. It must be said that the collection as a whole is not sustained to the high excellence of The Great Gatsby, but it has stories of fine insight and finished craft."[7]
Ironically, in a letter nine months earlier, Fitzgerald had advised his editor Max Perkins against publicizing the book through the newspaper. "Rather not use advertising appropriation in Times—people who read Times Book Review won't be interested in me."[8]
Critical appraisal
[edit]In a letter to Scribner's editor-in-chief Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald explained that "seven of the stories deal with young men of my generation in rather unhappy moods" to justify his choice for the collections' title.[4] Biographer John Kuehl notes that the volume's title reflects with precision the final years of Fitzgerald's youth in the late 1920s: "All the Sad Young Men captures in a phrase the feeling he had in losing the most vibrant experiences of his life before age took them away."[9]
Biographer Kenneth Eble ranks three stories—"The Rich Boy," "Winter Dreams," and "Absolution"—as "worth including" in the collection and "among the better ones in all his short fiction." The other selections are reminiscent of Fitzgerald's "contrived magazine fiction." According to Eble, the author himself characterized some of the short fiction as "cheap and without the spontaneity of my first work."[10]
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ a b Bryer 2000, p. 1062.
- ^ a b Kuehl 1991, p. 184, Selected Bibliography.
- ^ a b Bruccoli 1998: See annotated introductions for selected short stories.
- ^ a b Kuehl 1991, pp. 52, 73.
- ^ Eble 1963, p. 107.
- ^ Petry 1989, pp. 99–100.
- ^ The New York Times 1926, p. 9.
- ^ Fitzgerald 1995, p. 121.
- ^ Kuehl 1991, p. 107.
- ^ Eble 1963, p. 103: "Fitzgerald never wrote a worse scene or created a falser situation than the one in 'Hot and Cold Blood.'"
Sources
[edit]- Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. (1998). "Preface". The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York City: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84250-5 – via Internet Archive.
- Bryer, Jackson R. (2000). "Chronology and Notes". F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. New York: Library of America. pp. 1057–1071. ISBN 1-883011-84-1 – via Internet Archive.
- Eble, Kenneth E. (1963). F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. LCCN 63-10953 – via Internet Archive.
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott (May 3, 1995). Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.). A Life in Letters: A New Collection Edited and Annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York City: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-80153-7 – via Google Books.
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2000). F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. New York: Library of America. ISBN 1-883011-84-1 – via Internet Archive.
- Kuehl, John (1991). Weaver, Gordon (ed.). F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-8332-6 – via Internet Archive.
- Petry, Alice Hall (1989). Fitzgerald's Craft of Short Fiction. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN 0-8173-0547-5 – via Internet Archive.
- "Scott Fitzgerald Turns a Corner". The New York Times. New York City. March 7, 1926. p. 9. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
External links
[edit]- An omnibus collection of Fitzgerald's short fiction, including All the Sad Young Men at Standard Ebooks
- All the Sad Young Men at Faded Page (Canada)
- All the Sad Young Men at Project Gutenberg
All the Sad Young Men public domain audiobook at LibriVox- The New York Times Book Review in March, 1926, on All the Sad Young Men
