Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (569 page)

As ever, Scott

Villa Marie,
Valescure StRaphael, France

Before
August 27, 1924

Dear Max:

(1) — The novel will be done next week. That doesn’t mean however that it’ll reach America before October 1st as Zelda and I are contemplating a careful revision after a week’s complete rest (2) — The clippings have never arrived.

(3) Seldes  has been with me and he thinks For
the Grimalkins is
a wonderful title for Ring’s book. Also I’ve got great ideas about My
Life and Loves
which I’ll tell Ring when he comes over in September.

(4) How many copies has his short stories sold?

(5) — Your bookkeeper never did send me my royalty report for August 1st.

(6) — For Christ’s sake, don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.

(7) — I think my novel is about the best American novel ever written. It is rough stuff in places, runs only to about 50,000 words, and I hope you won’t shy at it.

(8) — It’s been a fair summer. I’ve been unhappy but my work hasn’t suffered from it. I am grown at last.

(9) — What books are being talked about? I don’t mean best sellers. Hergesheimer’s novel in the
Post
seems vile to me.

(10) — I hope you’re reading Gertrude Stein’s novel in the
Transatlantic
Review.

(11) — Raymond Radiguet’s last book (he is the young man who wrote Le Diable au
Corps
at sixteen untranslatable) is a great hit here. He wrote it at 18. It’s called Le Bal du Comte d’Orgel and though I’m only half through it I’d get an opinion on it if I were you. It’s cosmopolitan rather than French and my instinct tells me that in a good translation it might make an enormous hit in America, where everyone is yearning for Paris. Do look it up and get at least one opinion on it. The preface is by the dadaist ean Cocteau but the book is not dada at all.

(12) — Did you get hold of Ring’s other books?

(13) — We’re liable to leave here by October 1st so after the 15th of September I wish you’d send everything care of Guaranty Trust Co., Paris.

(14) — Please ask the bookstore, if you have time, to send me Have- lock Ellis’
Dance of Life
and charge to my account.

(15) — I asked Struthers Burt to dinner but his baby was sick.

(16) — Be
sure
and answer every question, Max.

I miss seeing you like the devil.

Scott

Villa Marie,
Valescure
St
Raphael, France

Before October
18, 1942

Dear
Max:

The royalty was better than I’d expected. This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemingway, who lives in Paris (an American), writes for the
Transatlantic
Review and has a brilliant future. Ezra Pound published a collection of his short pieces in Paris, at some place like the Egotist Press. I haven’t it here now but it’s remarkable and I’d look him up right away. He’s the real thing.

My novel goes to you with a long letter within five days. Ring arrives in a week. This is just a hurried scrawl as I’m working like a dog. I thought Stallings’ book was disappointingly rotten. It takes a genius to whine appealingly. Have tried to see Struthers Burt but he’s been on the move. More later.

Scott

P.S.
Important.
What chance has a smart young Frenchman with an intimate knowledge of French literature in the bookselling business in New York? Is a clerk paid much and is there any opening for one specializing in French literature? Do tell me as there’s a young friend of mine here just out of the army who is anxious to know.

Sincerely,

Scott

Villa Marie,
Valescure StRaphael, France
(After Nov. 3d care
of
American Express Co.,
Rome, Italy)

October 27, 1924

Dear Max:

Under separate cover I’m sending you my third novel,
The Great Gatsby.
(I think that at last I’ve done something really my own, but how good ‘my own’ is remains to be seen.)

I should suggest the following contract.

15% up to 50,000

20% after 50,000

The book is only a little over fifty thousand words long but I believe, as you know, that. Whitney Darrow has the wrong psychology about prices (and about what class constitute the book- buying public now that the lowbrows go to the movies) and I’m anxious to charge two dollars for it and have it a
full-size book.

Of course I want the binding to be absolutely uniform with my other books - the stamping too - and the jacket we discussed before. This time I don’t want any signed blurbs on the jacket - not Mencken’s or Lewis’ or Howard’s or anyone’s. I’m tired of being the author of This Side of
Paradise
and I want to start over.

About serialization. I am bound under contract to show it to Hearst’s, but I am asking a prohibitive price, Long t hates me, and it’s not a very serialized book. If they should take it - they won’t - it would put publication in the fall. Otherwise you can publish it in the spring. When Hearst turns it down, I’m going to offer it to Liberty for $15,000 on condition that they’ll publish it in ten weekly installments before April 15 th. If they don’t want it, I shan’t serialize.
I am
absolutely
positive Long won’t want
it.

I have an alternative title:
Gold-hatted Ga
tsby.

After you’ve read the book, let me know what you think about the title. Naturally I won’t get a night’s sleep until I hear from you, but do tell me the absolute truth, your
first impression of the book,
and tell me anything that bothers you in it.

As ever,

Scott

I’d rather you wouldn’t call Reynolds as he might try to act as my agent.

Hotel Continental
St
Raphael, France (leaving Tuesday)

circa November 7, 1924

Dear
Max:

By now you’ve received the novel. There are things in it I’m not satisfied with, in the middle of the book - Chapters 6 and 7. And I may write in a complete new scene in proof. I hope you got my telegram.

I have now decided to stick to the title I put on the book.
Trimalchio in West
Egg.

The only other titles that seem to fit are
Trimalchio
and on
the Road to West Egg.
I had two others,
Gold-hatted Gatsby
and
The High-bouncing
Lover, but they seemed too light.

We leave for Rome as soon as I finish the short story I’m working on.

As ever,

Scott

I was interested that you’ve moved to New Canaan. It sounds wonderful. Sometimes I’m awfully anxious to be home.

But I am confused at what you say about Gertrude Stein. I thought it was one purpose of critics and publishers to educate the public up to original work. The first people who risked Conrad certainly didn’t do it as a commercial venture. Did the evolution of startling work into accepted work cease twenty years ago?

Do send me Boyd’s (Ernest’s) book when it comes out. I think the Lardner ads are wonderful. Did the
Dark Cloud
flop?

Would you ask the people downstairs to keep sending me my monthly bill for the encyclopedia?

Hotel
des Princes Piazza di Spagna

Rome, Italy

circa December 1,
1924

Dear
Max:

Your wire and your letters made me feel like a million dollars - I’m sorry I could make no better response than a telegram whining for money. But the long siege of the novel winded me a little and I’ve been slow on starting the stories on which I must live.

I think all your criticisms are true.

(a) — About the title. I’ll try my best but I don’t know what I can do. Maybe simply
Trimalchio
or
Gatsby.
In the former case, I don’t see why the note shouldn’t go on the back.

(b) — Chapters VI and VIII know how to fix.

(c) — Gatsby’s business affairs I can fix. I get your point about them.

(d) — His vagueness I can repair by
making more pointed
- this doesn’t sound good but wait and see. It’ll make him clear.

(e) — But his long narrative in Chapter VIII will be difficult to split up. Zelda also thought it was a little out of key, but it is good writing and I don’t think I could bear to sacrifice any of it.

(f) — I have 1000 minor corrections which I will make on the proof and several more large ones which you didn’t mention.

Your criticisms were excellent and most helpful, and you picked out all my favourite spots in the book to praise as high spots. Except you didn’t mention my favourite of all - the chapter where Gatsby and Daisy meet.

Two more things. Zelda’s been reading me the cowboy book aloud to spare my mind and I love it - the I think he learned the American language from Ring rather than from his own ear.

Another point - in Chapter II of my book when Tom and Myrtle go into the bedroom while Carraway reads Simon
Called Peter
- is that raw? Let me know. I think it’s pretty necessary.

I made the royalty smaller because I wanted to make up for all the money you’ve advanced these two years by letting it pay a sort of interest on it. But I see by calculating I made it too small - a difference of 2000 dollars. Let us call it 15% up to 40,000 and 20% after that. That’s a good fair contract all around.

By now you have heard from a smart young French woman who wants to translate the book. She’s equal to it intellectually and linguistically, I think - had read all my others - if you’ll tell her how to go about it as to royalty demands, etc. Anyhow thanks and thanks and thanks for your letters. I’d rather have you and Bunny like it than anyone I know. And I’d rather have you like it than Bunny. If it’s as good as you say, when I finish with the proof it’ll be perfect.

Remember, by the way, to put by some cloth for the cover uniform with my other books.

As soon as I can think about the title, I’ll write or wire a decision. Thank Louise for me, for liking it. Best regards to Mr. Scribner. Tell him Galsworthy is here in Rome.

As ever,

Scott

Hotel des Princes Piazza di Spagna
Rome,
Italy
circa
December 20,
1924

Dear
Max:

I’m a bit (not very - not dangerously) stewed tonight and I’ll probably write you a long letter. We’re living in a small, unfashionable but most comfortable hotel at $525.00 a month, including tips, meals, etc. Rome does not particularly interest me but it’s a big year here, and early in the spring we’re going to Paris. There’s no use telling you my plans because they’re usually just about as unsuccessful as to work as religious prognosticators are as to the End of the World. I’ve got a new novel to write - title and all - that’ll take about a year. Meanwhile, I don’t want to start it until this is out and meanwhile I’ll do short stories for money (I now get $2000 a story but I hate worse than hell to do them) and there’s the never-dying lure of another play.

Now! Thanks enormously for making up the $5000. I know I don’t technically deserve it, considering I’ve had $3000 or $4000 for as long as I can remember. But since you force it on me (in- execrable or is it execrable joke) I will accept it. I hope to Christ you get 10 times it back on
Gatsby
- and I think perhaps you will.

For:

I can now make it perfect but the proof (I will soon get the immemorial letter with the statement ‘We now have the book in hand and will soon begin to send you proof.’ What is ‘in hand?’ I have a vague picture of everyone in the office holding the book in the right hand and reading it.) will be one of the most expensive affairs since
Madame
Bovary.
Please
charge it to my account. If it’s possible to send a second proof over here I’d love to have it. Count on 12 days each way - four days here on first proof and two days on the second. I hope there are other good books in the spring because I think now the public interest in
books
per se rises when there seems to be a group of them, as in 1920 (spring and fall), 1921 (fall), 1922 (spring). Ring’s and Tom’s (first) books, Willa Cather’s Lost
Lady,
and in an inferior, cheap way Edna Ferber’s are the only American fiction in over two years that had a really excellent press (say, since Babbitt).

With the aid you’ve given me I can make Gatsby perfect. The Chapter 7 (the hotel scene) will never quite be up to mark - I’ve worried about it too long and I can’t quite place Daisy’s reaction. But I can improve it a lot. It isn’t imaginative energy that’s lacking - it’s because I’m automatically prevented from thinking it out over again
because I must get all
those
characters to New York
in order to have the catastrophe on the road going back, and I must have it pretty much that way. So there’s no chance of bringing the freshness to it that a new conception sometimes gives.

The rest is easy and I see my way so clear that I even see the mental quirks that queered it before. Strange to say, my notion of Gatsby’s vagueness was O.K. What you and Louise and Mr Charles Scribner found wanting was that:

I
myself didn’t know what Gatsby looked like or was engaged in
and you felt it. If I’d known and kept it from you you’d have been too
impressed
with
my knowledge to protest.
This is a complicated idea but I’m sure you’ll understand. But I know now. - and as a penalty for not having known first, in other words to make sure, I’m going to tell more.

It seems of almost mystical significance to me that you thought he was older - the man I had in mind, half-unconsciously, was older (a specific individual) and evidently, without so much as a definite word, I conveyed the fact. Or rather I must qualify this Shaw Desmond trash by saying that I conveyed it without a word that I can at present or for the life of me trace. (I think Shaw Desmond was one of your bad bets - I was the other.)