Description
First edition, first printing of Tales of the Jazz Age, in the publisher’s first state dust jacket, with an exceptional inscription by F. Scott Fitzgerald about his Jazz Age.
Octavo, xi, [1], 317pp. Original green textured cloth, title in gilt on spine. The first printing, with “Published September, 1922” and Scribner’s Seal on copyright page, plus “an” for “and” on page 232, line 6. Partial tear to page ix, thumb marks on page 186. In the publisher’s first state dust jacket, with some loss along top edge and chipping to rear panel, partial separation to front flap fold. Faint soiling to rear panel, small stain to spine. Illustrations by John Held, Jr. The first state dust jacket, with all issue points, including advertisements for the fifth printing of Flappers and Philosophers and the thirteenth printing of This Side of Paradise. (Bruccoli A9.I.a) Housed in a custom quarter green morocco clamshell case, title in gilt on spine.
Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “My Heavens, Eddie – There was a Jazz Age – do you remember it? We were still wearing bibs then – or no – we were already a couple of old numbers or – say, the less said about this the better – F. Scott Fitzgerald / Encino, 1939.”
The likely recipient of this copy, Edward Everett Horton (1886-1970), famed character actor on television, film, and stage, rented a cottage to F. Scott Fitzgerald in Encino, California in 1939. Fitzgerald faced financial difficulties in the late 1930s as his success as a screenwriter at MGM Studios dwindled and alcoholism took over. He moved out of his popular Hollywood residence, The Garden of Allah Hotel, to Horton’s guest house. Fitzgerald would sometimes pay rent in quarter or half increments, and occasionally wrote to Horton’s sister Isabel asking for extensions on due dates. In one such letter to Isabel requesting a decrease in rent to aid in his debts, Fitzgerald added as a postscript, “Very Best to Eddie if you’re with him.”
