The Beautiful and Damned
- ISBN-10
- 1071138103
- ISBN-13
- 9781071138106
- Series
- The Beautiful and Damned
- Pages
- 378
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2019-06-04
- Author
- F Scott Fitzgerald
Description
The Beautiful and Damned, first published by Scribner's in 1922, is F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel. It explores and portrays New York café society and the American Eastern elite during the Jazz Age before and after "the Great War" and in the early 1920s.As in his other novels, Fitzgerald's characters in this novel are complex, especially with respect to marriage and intimacy. The work generally is considered to be based on Fitzgerald's relationship and marriage with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald.The Beautiful and Damned tells the story of Anthony Patch, a 1910s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune, and his courtship and relationship with his wife Gloria Gilbert. It describes his brief service in the Army during World War I, the couple's post-war partying life in New York, and his later alcoholism.[1][3] Gloria and Anthony's story deals with the hardships of a relationship, especially when each character has a tendency to be selfish.Toward the end of the novel, Fitzgerald summarizes the plot and his intentions in writing it, even referencing his own first novel, when a financially successful writer friend tells Anthony: You know these new novels make me tired. My God! Everywhere I go some silly girl asks me if I've read This Side of Paradise. Are our girls really like that? If it's true to life, which I don't believe, the next generation is going to the dogs. I'm sick of all this shoddy realism. I think there's a place for the romanticist in literature.
