Review by Choice Review
This new collection, containing 43 of Fitzgerald's best short stories, belongs in every library. Bruccoli, an acknowledged Fitzgerald expert, has collected and provided useful headnotes for many of the greatest, most frequently anthologized stories (e.g. "The Rich Boy," "Winter Dreams") as well as a representative sampling of lesser-known pieces, some virtually unknown ("Last Kiss," "Dearly Beloved"). Although innumerable anthologies of Fitzgerald's short fiction are in print, this volume is most directly comparable to Malcolm Cowley's edition of The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1951). Bruccoli reprints many of Cowley's selections, and adds 23 more. An illuminating preface by the editor and a foreword by Charles Scribner III add to the usefulness of this volume for student, advanced scholar, or general reader. -B. H. Leeds, Central Connecticut State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Though often a victim of the alternating winds that blow across the landscape of literary criticism, Fitzgerald stands, at least today, as a major twentieth-century American novelist. Debate will always rage over his short stories, however. Good literature and consequently a boon to his stature? Or hackwork easy to dismiss once they have been granted their entertainment value? Forty-three of Fitzgerald's many short stories have been gathered into this new collection (as opposed to the 28 composing the heretofore standard collection compiled in 1951 by Malcolm Cowley). Fitzgerald was a chronicler of the Jazz Age but his stories cannot be dismissed as period pieces. With an indelicate but not imprecise hand, he saw through the climate of his time to the timeless frailties of human nature. Literature or lighthearted diversion? Their ability to both enliven and enlighten tip the scales in favor of the former. --Brad Hooper
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bruccoli's ( Some Sort of Epic Grandeur ) collection of 43 Fitzgerald stories includes 23 not featured in Malcolm Cowley's landmark 1951 collection, expanding the canon of a peerless American writer who was deeply ambivalent about the role of short fiction in his art. Published in commercial magazines (e.g., the Saturday Evening Post ), the stories brought their author as much as $4000 each--but also exacted a price, distracting Fitzgerald from work on his novels. Regardless, many of the stories are unequalled in achievement--inspirited with a delicate wit, a shrewd perception of character and a poetic sense of place--and lead us through Fitzgerald's rich creative chronology, from unforgettable evocations of the enchanting but ruthless social whirl of the young in the 1920s (``Bernice Bobs Her Hair'') to the exhaustion of spirit chronicled 16 years later in ``Afternoon of an Author.'' Among the 23 stories, nearly all of which have appeared previously in magazines, is one--``Last Kiss''--published for the first time in the author's final revision. Invaluable to Fitzgerald admirers, Bruccoli's collection should also capture a new generation of readers. BOMC alternate, QPB main selection . (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This collection of 43 stories--culled from some 160 in the Fitzgerald canon--is designed to replace Malcolm Cowley's 1951 selection of 28 stories. Bruccoli has prefaced each story briefly and reasserted his conviction that Fitzgerald is of paramount importance as a short-story writer. Those already thus persuaded may welcome this new edition. Others, less enchanted by such claims, will not. So much of Fitzgerald seems hopelessly dated, so much O. Henry-ized, so much twisted into easy magazine-acceptability that the occasionally brilliant sentence that Fitzgerald could always unexpectedly produce serves more as a gauge of the normal mediocrity of his imagination than the mark of any enduring value.-- Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
