F. Scott Fitzgerald - Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

NOVELS

THE LAST TYCOON ( Unfinished )

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

THE GREAT GATSBY

THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

STORIES

BITS OF PARADISE

uncollected stories by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

THE BASIL AND JOSEPHINE STORIES

edited and with an introduction by Jackson R. Bryer and John Kuehl

THE PAT HOBBY STORIES

edited and with an introduction by Arnold Gingrich

TAPS AT REVEILLE

SIX TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE AND OTHER STORIES

with an introduction by Frances Fitzgerald Smith

FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS

with an introduction by Arthur Mizener

THE STORIES OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

a selection of 28 stories, with an introduction by Malcolm Cowley

BABYLON REVISITED AND OTHER STORIES

THE SHORT STORIES OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

edited and with a preface by Matthew J. Bruccoli

ID DIE FOR YOU AND OTHER LOST STORIES

edited and with an introduction by Anne Margaret Daniel

STORIES AND ESSAYS

THE CRACK-UP

edited by Edmund Wilson

AFTERNOON OF AN AUTHOR

with an introduction and notes by Arthur Mizener

THE FITZGERALD READER

with an introduction by Arthur Mizener

LETTERS

THE LETTERS OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

with an introduction by Andrew Turnbull

CORRESPONDENCE OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Margaret M. Duggan

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: A LIFE IN LETTERS

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli

LETTERS TO HIS DAUGHTER

edited by Andrew Turnbull and with an introduction by Frances Fitzgerald Lanahan

AS EVER, SCOTT FITZ: LETTERS BETWEEN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

AND HIS LITERARY AGENT, HAROLD OBER

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Jennifer McCabe Atkinson

DEAR SCOTT/DEAR MAX: THE FITZGERALD-PERKINS CORRESPONDENCE

edited by John Kuehl and Jackson Bryer

DEAR SCOTT, DEAREST ZELDA

edited by Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks

POEMS

POEMS, 19111940

with an introduction by James Dickey

AND A COMEDY

THE VEGETABLE

with an introduction by Charles Scribner III

Scribner

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2002 by Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks

Introduction copyright 2002 by Eleanor Lanahan

Heretofore unpublished letters copyright Eleanor Lanahan, Thomas P. Roche, and Christopher T. ByrneTrustees under agreement dated July 3, 1975, by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith.

Originally published in Great Britain in 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing UK

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Scribner trade paperback edition July 2019

SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

Cover design by Math Monahan

Cover photograph: Everett Collection Inc./Alamy Stock Photo

Decorative elements on spine: L_Kramer/iStock/Getty Images Plus

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Title page photograph: Embarking on The Cruise of the Rolling Junk.

Courtesy of Princeton University Library

ISBN 978-1-9821-1712-2

ISBN 978-1-9821-1713-9 (ebook)

To Mary and David

Happily, happily foreverafterwards the best we could.

I n preparing this book, we received assistance from a number of people. Ronald Goldfarb and Kristen Auclair found us a publisher. At St. Martins Press, Diane Higgins, our editor, was a consistent voice of support and encouragement, along with her assistant, Nichole Argyres. Carol Edwards not only copyedited our manuscript expertly; she improved it significantly. Mary C. Hartig, Marc Singer, Sarah Barks, and David Bryan Barks helped prepare the text. Eleanor Lanahan, Wendy Schmalz, AnnaLee Pauls, Don C. Skemer, Ruth Prigozy, Judith Baughman, Tom Adams, David Bryan Barks, Rosemary Mizener Colt, Mary Anne Neeley, and Lisa Hartjens assisted us in securing photographs.

Illustrations in Text

T he most important relationship that either F. Scott or Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald had was that with each other; it was the catalyst for and foremost theme of much of their fiction. The letters they exchanged tell the story of this central relationship in their own words; those that have been previously published in editions of Scotts correspondence and in Zeldas Collected Writings have never before appeared together in one volume. In addition, there are many unpublished letters in the Princeton University library, and these deserve to be part of the record, as well. The Fitzgeralds courtship and marriage has become a compelling and enduring part of our literary history. The new letters, placed chronologically with those collected previously, allow us to view their relationship in a more evenhanded manner than heretofore has been possible.

The most detailed and accurate account of the Fitzgeralds relationship is still Nancy Milfords best-selling Zelda: A Biography (1970). Milford was the first not only to explore the many letters Zelda wrote to Scott but also to attempt putting them in some kind of order. In the prologue to Zelda, Milford recalls how she and her husband read the letters aloud to each other as if they had just arrived, not knowing from what terrain of their lives they had been written or what the next one would say. They were hopelessly mixed up and undated, without, in most cases, envelopes to give them dates.... I had somewhat innocently... entered into something I neither could nor would put down for six years... (xiii). Much of Milfords account is based on these letters, from which she quotes extensively; yet only a sampling of them could appear in her biography, and even then only in a highly truncated form. Now, for the first time, we can read those intriguing letters from Zelda to Scott for ourselves.

Over thirty years have passed since the Milford biography, and, as a society, we have learned much (though still not enough) about the nature of mental illness (from which Zelda suffered) and alcoholism (from which Scott suffered). Yet this knowledge has not been reflected in what has been written about the Fitzgeralds. The tendency has been to sensationalize their lives and illnesses.

Scott and Zeldas lives were indisputably dramatic and tragic, and therefore all too easy to distort. Perhaps the most sensational myth of all is the persistent claim that Scott, jealous of his wifes creativity, suppressed her talents and drove her mad. Koula Svokos Hartnetts view of the Fitzgeralds marriage, in Zelda Fitzgerald and the Failure of the American Dream for Women (1991), regrettably is all too representative: As his appendage, [Zelda] was to become the victim of [Scotts] self-destructive urge. In denying her the right to be her own person... , by refusing to permit her the use of her own material... , by rebuking her for attempting to create a life of her ownhe gradually causes her to emotionally wither and die (187). Such an assertion defies common sense as well as even the most fundamental understanding of mental illness; yet it has gained some general acceptance. For further evidence that this view persists, one has only to look at the most recent biography of the Fitzgeralds, published in 2001 and claiming to be definitive, in which Kendall Taylor asserts: