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543

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:6,000.00 - 7,000.00 USD
F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Auction Date:2011 Sep 14 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Signed book: This Side of Paradise. First edition. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. Hardcover, 5.25 x 7.75, 305 pages. Signed in fountain pen on the “Author’s Apology” leaf, tipped into the beginning of the book. Leaf bears an image of a young Fitzgerald at the top, with the printed apology, dated May 1920, reading, in part: “I don’t want to talk about myself because I’ll admit I did that somewhat in this book. In fact, to write it took three months; to conceive it—three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life…An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward. So, gentlemen, consider all the cocktails mentioned in this book drunk by me as a toast to the American Booksellers Association.” Boldly signed at the bottom, “Sincerely, F. Scott Fitzgerald.” In fine condition, with light toning and soiling to opening and closing pages and both pastedowns, a uniform shade of toning to interior pages, and some light soiling and wear to covers as well as head and tail of spine. Book is housed in an attractive archival, museum quality custom-made gilt-stamped hunter green morocco case.

Fitzgerald composed this “apology” to be tipped into copies of the third printing of This Side of Paradise and distributed at the May 1920 convention of the American Bookseller’s Association. It offers evidence of the public persona he was adopting at the beginning of his career. While jokingly connecting his writing of the novel with the beginning of Prohibition, “The Author’s Apology” contributed to the false image of Fitzgerald as a natural but careless writer who dashed off stories and novels between benders. An extremely desirable, and equally elusive, American literary autograph…and probably the closest you’ll find to a signed photo of Fitzgerald!
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