This Side of Paradise (Paperback or Softback)

This Side of Paradise (1920) is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published at the very beginning of Fitzgerald’s career as a leading writer of American fiction, This Side of Paradise was a resounding critical and commercial success, allowing him to marry his young love Zelda Sayre. The novel is a semi-autobiographical study of youthful ambition, disillusioned romance, and a generation scarred by war. Amory Blaine is a young man from the Midwest with great ambitions and unfocused talent. He attends Princeton University, where he excels as a student and writer while keeping up a romantic correspondence with Isabelle Borgé, a girl from his youth. Greatly anticipating her arrival in Princeton, Blaine reunites with her one last time for a university prom, where he realizes whatever love they once shared has now been lost. Despairing, Blaine enlists in the army and is sent overseas to fight in the First World War. When he returns, he takes up a position as a copywriter at a New York City advertising agency, falls for the beautiful debutante Rosalind Connage, a quickly finds himself spiraling into self-doubt and out of control. This Side of Paradise is a tragic story of unrealized potential in a young man willing to meet the world head-on without ever looking at himself. Upon publication, Fitzgerald’s debut marked the beginning of a promising career as one of twentieth century America’s finest writers of fiction. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this new edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise is a classic work of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota to Edward and Mary Fitzgerald, he was raised in Buffalo in a middle-class Catholic family. Fitzgerald excelled in school from a young age and was known as an active and curious student, primarily of literature. In 1908 the family returned to St. Paul, where Fitzgerald published his first work of fiction, a detective story, at the age of 13. He completed his high school education at the Newman School in New Jersey before enrolling at Princeton University. In 1917, reeling from an ill-fated relationship and waning in his academic pursuits, Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton to join the Army. While stationed in Alabama, he began a relationship with Zelda Sayre, a Montgomery socialite. In 1919, he moved to New York City, where he struggled to launch his career as a writer. His first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), was a resounding success, earning Fitzgerald a sustainable income and allowing him to marry Zelda. Following the birth of his daughter Scottie in 1921, Fitzgerald published his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), a collection of short stories. His rising reputation in New York’s social and literary scenes coincided with a growing struggle with alcoholism and the deterioration of Zelda’s mental health. Despite this, Fitzgerald managed to complete his masterpiece The Great Gatsby (1925), a withering portrait of corruption and decay at the heart of American society. After living for several years in France in Italy, the end of the decade marked the decline of Fitzgerald’s reputation as a writer, forcing him to move to Hollywood in pursuit of work as a screenwriter. His alcoholism accelerated in these last years, leading to severe heart problems and eventually his death at the age of 44. By this time, he was virtually forgotten by the public, but critical reappraisal and his influence on such writers as Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, and Richard Yates would ensure his status as one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century American fiction.