This Side of Paradise.
London: W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1921. British First Edition. Hardcover. This is the British first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, an immediate success that made him famous and earned him the first flush of the financial means he would perpetually overspend in drink, travel, parties, and other indulgences, echoing many of his own literary characters.
This copy is in very good condition in the publisher’s blue cloth, printed in red on the front cover and spine, the front cover with a double-ruled red border, the spine with double red rules at the head and tail. The binding is square, clean, tight, and unfaded, with sharp corners and no color shift between the covers and spine. Wear is minimal – wrinkled spine ends and a touch of shelf wear to the corners. The chief blemish is some mottling and discoloration to the lower right front cover at both the bottom and fore edges. The binding compensates by being otherwise bright with superior shelf presentation. The contents remain respectably bright, with no previous ownership marks and internally free of spotting, which appears confined to the text block edges and is light. The endpapers show modest browning from the pastedown glue.
The book is housed in a blue cloth solander case, lined with blue paper and featuring a red Morocco spine label printed and ruled in gilt. The solander’s blue cloth and red label closely echo the hues of the binding. The case is in fine condition.
Amory Blaine, the protagonist of This Side of Paradise, is a Princeton student who draws heavily on Fitzgerald’s own Princeton experience. In late 1917, as American involvement in the First World War deepened and Fitzgerald found himself in repeated danger of flunking out of Princeton, he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry and reported, in November 1917, to a unit under the command of then-Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. “There, on weekends at the Officers’ Club, Fitzgerald began writing the first draft of a novel, ‘The Romantic Egotist.’” (ANB) 1918 and 1919 saw important rejections – by Scribner’s, who declined both his novel and a revision, and by Zelda Sayre, who would not marry him until he had some financial security. In September 1919, his further revised manuscript, now called “This Side of Paradise” was accepted for publication.
“The publication of This Side of Paradise on 26 March 1920 brought Fitzgerald money, success, and Zelda” who married Fitzgerald on 3 April 1920. “At the time, it was a daring, revealing book about the generational gap in manners and morals… In its portrayal of culture changes that resulted from World War I, the novel shocked those whose standards of conduct had been formed earlier… Fitzgerald was now seen as the chronicler of the Jazz Age, of flaming youth, of the flapper – a reputation that would constantly plague him even in his obituaries.” Strong demand for the book resulted in twelve printings of the American first edition in 1920 and 1921. This British first edition came in 1921. Item #009012
Price: $550.00