Fitzgerald: The Beautiful and Damned

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), was a pivotal book in his career. A trenchant satire of the Jazz Age, it is very much a novel of its times. This edition is based on the surviving manuscript, the serialized version from Metropolitan magazine, the Scribners 1922 first American edition, and the Collins 1922 first British edition. The volume includes a detailed account of the composition of the novel, a textual apparatus, a chronology of composition, and, uniquely, three versions of the ending. Explanatory notes identify Fitzgerald’s topical and historical references - to books and authors, Broadway shows and Manhattan cabarets, movie stars and sports heroes, statesmen and criminals, business tycoons and historical figures. These notes situate The Beautiful and Damned in its times and deepen the reader’s understanding of Fitzgerald’s sources for the novel.