{"product_id":"the-best-early-stories-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-isbn-9780812974775","title":"The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald","description":"Edited and with an Introduction by Bryant Mangum\u003cbr\u003eForeword by Roxana Robinson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBenediction • Head and Shoulders • Bernice Bobs Her Hair • The Ice Palace • The Offshore Pirate • May Day • The Jelly Bean • The Diamond as Big as the Ritz • Winter Dreams • Absolution\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the euphoric months before and after the publication of \u003ci\u003eThis Side of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the flapper’s historian and poet laureate of the Jazz Age, wrote the ten stories that appear in this unique collection. Exploring  characters and themes that would appear in his later works, such as \u003ci\u003eThe Beautiful and Damned\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Great Gatsby\u003c\/i\u003e, these early selections are among the very best of Fitzgerald’s many short stories. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis Modern Library Paperback Classic includes notes, an appendix of nonfiction essays by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their contemporaries, and vintage magazine illustrations.Bryant Mangum is a professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of A Fortune Yet: Money in the Art of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Short Stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRoxana Robinson is the author of three novels, Summer Light, Sweetwater, and This Is My Daughter; a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe; and three short story collections, including A Perfect Stranger and Other Stories. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. She lives in New York.\u003c\/b\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Benediction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Baltimore Station was hot and crowded, so Lois was forced to stand   by the telegraph desk for interminable, sticky seconds while a clerk   with big front teeth counted and recounted a large lady’s day message,   to determine whether it contained the innocuous forty-nine words or the   fatal fifty-one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois, waiting, decided she wasn’t quite sure of the address, so she   took the letter out of her bag and ran over it again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Darling”: it began—“I understand and I’m happier than life ever meant   me to be. If I could give you the things you’ve always been in tune   with—but I can’t, Lois; we can’t marry and we can’t lose each other and   let all this glorious love end in nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Until your letter came, dear, I’d been sitting here in the half dark   thinking and thinking where I could go and ever forget you; abroad,   perhaps, to drift through Italy or Spain and dream away the pain of   having lost you where the crumbling ruins of older, mellower   civilizations would mirror only the desolation of my heart—and then   your letter came.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Sweetest, bravest girl, if you’ll wire me I’ll meet you in   Wilmington—till then I’ll be here just waiting and hoping for every   long dream of you to come true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Howard.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She had read the letter so many times that she knew it word by word,   yet it still startled her. In it she found many faint reflections of   the man who wrote it—the mingled sweetness and sadness in his dark   eyes, the furtive, restless excitement she felt sometimes when he   talked to her, his dreamy sensuousness that lulled her mind to sleep.   Lois was nineteen and very romantic and curious and courageous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The large lady and the clerk having compromised on fifty words, Lois   took a blank and wrote her telegram. And there were no overtones to the   finality of her decision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It’s just destiny—she thought—it’s just the way things work out in this   damn world. If cowardice is all that’s been holding me back there won’t   be any more holding back. So we’ll just let things take their course,   and never be sorry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The clerk scanned her telegram:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Arrived Baltimore today spend day with my brother meet me Wilmington   three P.M. Wednesday Love\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lois.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Fifty-four cents,” said the clerk admiringly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And never be sorry—thought Lois—and never be sorry——\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    II\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Trees filtering light onto dappled grass. Trees like tall, languid   ladies with feather fans coquetting airily with the ugly roof of the   monastery. Trees like butlers, bending courteously over placid walks   and paths. Trees, trees over the hills on either side and scattering   out in clumps and lines and woods all through eastern Maryland,   delicate lace on the hems of many yellow fields, dark opaque   backgrounds for flowered bushes or wild climbing gardens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Some of the trees were very gay and young, but the monastery trees were   older than the monastery which, by true monastic standards, wasn’t very   old at all. And, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t technically called a   monastery, but only a seminary; nevertheless it shall be a monastery   here despite its Victorian architecture or its Edward VII additions, or   even its Woodrow Wilsonian, patented, last-a-century roofing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Out behind was the farm where half a dozen lay brothers were sweating   lustily as they moved with deadly efficiency around the   vegetable-gardens. To the left, behind a row of elms, was an informal   baseball diamond where three novices were being batted out by a fourth,   amid great chasings and puffings and blowings. And in front as a great   mellow bell boomed the half-hour a swarm of black, human leaves were   blown over the checker-board of paths under the courteous trees.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Some of these black leaves were very old with cheeks furrowed like the   first ripples of a splashed pool. Then there was a scattering of   middle-aged leaves whose forms when viewed in profile in their   revealing gowns were beginning to be faintly unsymmetrical. These   carried thick volumes of Thomas Aquinas and Henry James and Cardinal   Mercier and Immanuel Kant1 and many bulging note-books filled with   lecture data.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But most numerous were the young leaves; blond boys of nineteen with   very stern, conscientious expressions; men in the late twenties with a   keen self-assurance from having taught out in the world for five   years—several hundreds of them, from city and town and country\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    in Maryland and Pennsylvania and Virginia and West Virginia and   Delaware.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There were many Americans and some Irish and some tough Irish and a few   French, and several Italians and Poles, and they walked informally arm   in arm with each other in twos and threes or in long rows, almost   universally distinguished by the straight mouth and the considerable   chin—for this was the Society of Jesus, founded in Spain five hundred   years before by a tough-minded soldier2 who trained men to hold a   breach or a salon, preach a sermon or write a treaty, and do it and not   argue . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois got out of a bus into the sunshine down by the outer gate. She was   nineteen with yellow hair and eyes that people were tactful enough not   to call green. When men of talent saw her in a street-car they often   furtively produced little stub-pencils and backs of envelopes and tried   to sum up that profile or the thing that the eyebrows did to her eyes.   Later they looked at their results and usually tore them up with   wondering sighs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Though Lois was very jauntily attired in an expensively appropriate   travelling affair, she did not linger to pat out the dust which covered   her clothes, but started up the central walk with curious glances at   either side. Her face was very eager and expectant, yet she hadn’t at   all that glorified expression that girls wear when they arrive for a   Senior Prom at Princeton or New Haven; still, as there were no senior   proms here, perhaps it didn’t matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was wondering what he would look like, whether she’d possibly know   him from his picture. In the picture, which hung over her mother’s   bureau at home, he seemed very young and hollow-cheeked and rather   pitiful, with only a well-developed mouth and an ill-fitting   probationer’s gown to show that he had already made a momentous   decision about his life. Of course he had been only nineteen then and   now he was thirty-six—didn’t look like that at all; in recent   snap-shots he was much broader and his hair had grown a little thin—but   the impression of her brother she had always retained was that of the   big picture. And so she had always been a little sorry for him. What a   life for a man! Seventeen years of preparation and he wasn’t even a   priest yet—wouldn’t be for another year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois had an idea that this was all going to be rather solemn if she let   it be. But she was going to give her very best imitation of undiluted   sunshine, the imitation she could give even when her head was splitting   or when her mother had a nervous breakdown or when she was particularly   romantic and curious and courageous. This brother of hers undoubtedly   needed cheering up, and he was going to be cheered up, whether he liked   it or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As she drew near the great, homely front door she saw a man break   suddenly away from a group and, pulling up the skirts of his gown, run   toward her. He was smiling, she noticed, and he looked very big and—and   reliable. She stopped and waited, knew that her heart was beating   unusually fast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lois!” he cried, and in a second she was in his arms. She was suddenly   trembling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lois!” he cried again, “why, this is wonderful! I can’t tell you,   Lois, how much I’ve looked forward to this. Why, Lois, you’re   beautiful!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois gasped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His voice, though restrained, was vibrant with energy and that odd sort   of enveloping personality she had thought that she only of the family   possessed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m mighty glad, too—Kieth.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She flushed, but not unhappily, at this first use of his name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lois—Lois—Lois,” he repeated in wonder. “Child, we’ll go in here a   minute, because I want you to meet the rector, and then we’ll walk   around. I have a thousand things to talk to you about.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His voice became graver. “How’s mother?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She looked at him for a moment and then said something that she had not   intended to say at all, the very sort of thing she had resolved to   avoid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Oh, Kieth—she’s—she’s getting worse all the time, every way.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He nodded slowly as if he understood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Nervous, well—you can tell me about that later. Now——”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was in a small study with a large desk, saying something to a   little, jovial, white-haired priest who retained her hand for some   seconds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “So this is Lois!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He said it as if he had heard of her for years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He entreated her to sit down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Two other priests arrived enthusiastically and shook hands with her and   addressed her as “Kieth’s little sister,” which she found she didn’t   mind a bit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    How assured they seemed; she had expected a certain shyness, reserve at   least. There were several jokes unintelligible to her, which seemed to   delight every one, and the little Father Rector referred to the trio of   them as “dim old monks,” which she appreciated, because of course they   weren’t monks at all. She had a lightning impression that they were   especially fond of Kieth—the Father Rector had called him “Kieth” and   one of the others had kept a hand on his shoulder all through the   conversation. Then she was shaking hands again and promising to come   back a little later for some ice-cream, and smiling and smiling and   being rather absurdly happy . . . she told herself that it was because   Kieth was so delighted in showing her off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then she and Kieth were strolling along a path, arm in arm, and he was   informing her what an absolute jewel the Father Rector was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lois,” he broke off suddenly, “I want to tell you before we go any   farther how much it means to me to have you come up here. I think it   was—mighty sweet of you. I know what a gay time you’ve been having.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois gasped. She was not prepared for this. At first when she had   conceived the plan of taking the hot journey down to Baltimore, staying   the night with a friend and then coming out to see her brother, she had   felt rather consciously virtuous, hoped he wouldn’t be priggish or   resentful about her not having come before—but walking here with him   under the trees seemed such a little thing, and surprisingly a happy   thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Why, Kieth,” she said quickly, “you know I couldn’t have waited a day   longer. I saw you when I was five, but of course I didn’t remember, and   how could I have gone on without practically ever having seen my only   brother?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It was mighty sweet of you, Lois,” he repeated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois blushed—he did have personality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I want you to tell me all about yourself,” he said after a pause. “Of   course I have a general idea what you and mother did in Europe those   fourteen years, and then we were all so worried, Lois, when you had   pneumonia and couldn’t come down with mother—let’s see, that was two   years ago—and then, well, I’ve seen your name in the papers, but it’s   all been so unsatisfactory. I haven’t known you, Lois.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She found herself analyzing his personality as she analyzed the   personality of every man she met. She wondered if the effect of—of   intimacy that he gave was bred by his constant repetition of her name.   He said it as if he loved the word, as if it had an inherent meaning to   him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Then you were at school,” he continued.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes, at Farmington.3 Mother wanted me to go to a convent—but I didn’t   want to.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She cast a side glance at him to see if he would resent this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But he only nodded slowly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Had enough convents abroad, eh?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes—and Kieth, convents are different there anyway. Here even in the   nicest ones there are so many common girls.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He nodded again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose there are, and I know how you feel about   it. It grated on me here, at first, Lois, though I wouldn’t say that to   any one but you; we’re rather sensitive, you and I, to things like   this.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You mean the men here?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes, some of them of course were fine, the sort of men I’d always been   thrown with, but there were others; a man named Regan, for\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    instance—I hated the fellow, and now he’s about the best friend I have.   A wonderful character, Lois; you’ll meet him later. Sort of man you’d   like to have with you in a fight.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lois was thinking that Kieth was the sort of man she’d like to have   with her in a fight.“How did you—how did you first happen to do it?”   she asked, rather shyly, “to come here, I mean. Of course mother told   me the story about the Pullman car.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Oh, that—” He looked rather annoyed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Tell me that. I’d like to hear you tell it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Oh, it’s nothing, except what you probably know. It was evening and   I’d been riding all day and thinking about—about a hundred things,   Lois, and then suddenly I had a sense that some one was sitting across   from me, felt that he’d been there for some time, and had a vague idea   that he was another traveller. All at once he leaned over toward me and   I heard a voice say: ‘I want you to be a priest, that’s what I want.’   Well, I jumped up and cried out, ‘Oh, my God, not that!’—made an idiot   of myself before about twenty people; you see there wasn’t any one   sitting there at all. A week after that I went to the Jesuit College in   Philadelphia4 and crawled up the last flight of stairs to the rector’s   office on my hands and knees.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There was another silence and Lois saw that her brother’s eyes wore a   far-away look, that he was staring unseeingly out over the sunny   fields. She was stirred by the modulations of his voice and the sudden   silence that seemed to flow about him when he finished speaking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She noticed now that his eyes were of the same fibre as hers, with the   green left out, and that his mouth was much gentler, really, than in   the picture—or was it that the face had grown up to it lately? He was   getting a little bald just on top of his head. She wondered if that was   from wearing a hat so much. It seemed awful for a man to grow bald and   no one to care about it.Edited and with an Introduction by Bryant Mangum; Foreward by Roxana Robinson; [quote] --New Statesman","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301201989861,"sku":"NP9780812974775","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812974775.jpg?v=1767738323","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-best-early-stories-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-isbn-9780812974775","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}