Winter Dreams

Fitzgerald F. Scott

Description

This 1922 short story, ‘Winter Dreams’, encapsulates the Jazz Age. With themes of unrequited love and self-made success, F. Scott Fitzgerald used this elegiac short story as the basis for his masterful novel The Great Gatsby (1925).

Dexter Green is the son of a middle-class grocery store owner. To earn money, he starts working as a golf caddie and it is on the golf course that he meets the beautiful socialite Judy Jones. Several years later, after Dexter has graduated college and become a self-made financial success, he and Judy are reunited. Their turbulent romance begins and Dexter is given many opportunities to change the course of his life.

‘Winter Dreams’ was first published in Metropolitan magazine in 1922 before being collected in All the Sad Young Men (1926). Like much of Fitzgerald’s work, the story highlights the financial extravagance and eventual disillusionment of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald’s characters are self-serving and, as a result, often regret their choices and long to recover their lost youth. Commenting on the frivolity of the upper class, Fitzgerald drew from his own experiences to breathe life into this realistic short story, which later became the basis for The Great Gatsby (1925).

This volume has been republished in a beautiful new edition, featuring an introductory essay on Jazz Age literature. Not to be missed by fans of The Great Gatsby, Winter Dreams would make the perfect addition to the bookshelves of fans of Fitzgerald’s work.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• Romance
• American
• Historical fiction
• Midwestern United States
• All the Sad Young Men
• América
• Coming of Age
• Historical
• 20th Century

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781528798341
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Winter Dreams
Read & Co. Classics Edition
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE GREAT GATSBY NOVEL
By
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
WITH THE INTRODUCTORY ESSAY The Jazz Age Literature of the Lost Generation

First published in 1922



Copyright © 2022 Read & Co. Classics
This edition is published by Read & Co. Classics, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
F. Scot t Fitzgerald
THE JAZZ AGE LITERATURE OF THE LOS T GENERATION
I
II
III
IV
V
VI




F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Min nesota, USA.
Born to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous lawyer second cousin, Francis Scott Key, But was referred to as Scott. His early education was at two Catholic schools in Buffalo, New York, first the Angels Convent, where he attended lessons for only half of the school day (he was allowed to choose which half) and then Nardin Academy. At an early age he was recognised as being of unusual intelligence and developed a keen interest in literature.
In 1908, his family returned to Minnesota due to his father being fired from Proctor & Gamble. While in Minnesota he attended St. Paul Academy and began his career as a fiction writer, having his first story printed in the school newspaper at the age of 13. He then moved to a prestigious Catholic prep school, Newman School in Jersey, before graduating in 1913 and enrolling at Princeton University.
He became immersed in the literary culture at Princeton, making friends with future writers and critics such as John Peale Bishop and Edmund Wilson, and writing for university publications including The Princeton Tiger and the Nassau Lit . His studies, however, suffered due to his literary pursuits and in 1917 he dropped out of education to join the U.S. Army and fight in World War I. He had made a couple of submissions of novels to publisher Charles Scribner's Sons but both were rejected even though his writing style was praised. One of these was The Romantic Egoist, hastily written before reporting for military duty for fear that he may die in the ensuing fighting. This novel was later revised and accepted in 1919 under the title This Side of Paradise .
While serving as a second lieutenant in Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald met his future wife, Zelda Sayre, daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court justice. When the war ended in 1918, he and Zelda wedded, and in 1921 had their first and only child, Frances Scott “Scottie” Fitzgerald.
During the 1920's Jazz Age Fitzgerald became enchanted with the expatriate community in Paris, visiting several times and making influential friends such as Ernest Hemingway. He continued his career writing short stories for magazines such as 'The Saturday Evening Post', Collier's Weekly', and Esquire, whilst at the same time perusing his ambitions as a novelist.
He and Zelda lived an opulent lifestyle as New York celebrities, but all was not roses. Fitzgerald was well known as a heavy drinker and struggled with financial difficulties. He was constantly borrowing money from his literary agent, Harold Ober, but when Ober decided to cut him off, Fitzgerald severed ties with his long-time friend. These financial problems became even more worrisome when Zelda was diagnosed as having schizophrenia in 1930. She was hospitalised and remained fragile for the rest of her life. This inspired his final complete novel Tender is the Night (1934), which tells the story of a young psychoanalyst, Dick Diver, and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of h is patients.
In 1937 Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood where he continued writing short stories and working on projects for the film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While there, Fitzgerald he began a relationship with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, with whom he lived whilst, now estranged, Zelda remained in mental institutions on the East Coast.
His alcoholism had been a part of his life since college, but by the late 1930's it began to seriously impact his health. It was his third heart attack that killed him and he was pronounced dead on 21st December 1940, a ged just 44.
He is remembered as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century. His work, The Great Gatsby (1925), though not highly praised during his life-time, is considered to be his magnum opus and is often on reading lists of English literature students aroun d the world.


THE JAZZ AGE LITERATURE OF THE LOST GENERATION
The Jazz Age is one of the most significant cultural movements in American history. Coinciding with the Roaring Twenties, the Prohibition Era, and women being granted the right to vote, the era that spanned from the First World War up to the Wall Street Crash in 1929 was a period of considerable social reform. The war had displaced thousands of Americans, with people not only losing loved ones but also their sense of purpose and direction in life. With a generation reeling from such devastation, life following the war was one of optimism, full of hope and determination for a better future. It allowed the young people to rebel against the traditional ideals that came before, exploring new artistic endeavours that helped shape a new glittering and prosperous society. Eventually becoming known as the Lost Generation, it was this wave of young people who helped form the Jazz Age of 1920s post- war America.
While the period of The Lost Generation is commonly known as America's liberating Jazz Age, jazz music had been around for many decades before then. The swinging genre of jazz began in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late nineteenth century, with its roots in ragtime and blues. The expressive, rhythmic music originated in the pain and oppression of slavery in the United States. Black-American communities popularised the music in the early 1920s during the prohibition of alcohol. It was popular in illegal speakeasies and became a widespread genre with the rise of radio, rebelling against the traditional, popular music of the time. Jazz came to represent a sense of freedom for the people of a country devastated by oppression, war, and loss, and formed the soundtrack for the hedonistic culture of the Roari ng Twenties.
Despite the era's culture being grounded in music, many prolific literary figures belonged to the Lost Generation, including the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.