Fitzgerald: The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western

Description

Even in its incomplete form The Love of The Last Tycoon has achieved a reputation as the best novel about Hollywood. When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 he had written seventeen of thirty projected episodes. In 1941 the 'unfinished novel' was published in a text for general readers by Edmund Wilson under the title The Last Tycoon. For more than fifty years this edition, which is not true to the original work in progress, has been the only one available. This critical edition of The Love of The Last Tycoon, first published in 1994, utilises Fitzgerald's manuscript drafts, revised typescipts, and working notes to establish the first authoritative text of the work. The volume includes a detailed history of the gestation, composition, and publication of the novel; full textual apparatus with editorial notes; fascimiles of the drafts; and explanatory notes on topical allusions and historical references for contemporary readers. The reconstruction of Fitzgerald's plan for the thirteen unwritten episodes is particularly useful. F. Scott Fitzgerald's incomplete masterpiece is restored its 1940 state, and thus made fully accessible to a cross-section of readers.

"The Love of the Last Tycoon carries the authority of a great writer working very close to the top of his form. Only scholars will need to consult the 200 pages of extensive critical apparatus included in this edition. But anyone who admires Fitzgerald will want to take another look at the 129 pages of Tycoon text, now that they have at last been printed as he would have wanted them to be." Scott Donaldson, Chicago Tribune "...the Bruccoli version adds new, valuable, and important information regarding Fitzgerald's artistry, his knowledge of the film industry, and the accomplishment represented by what still must be regarded as work in progress....This book, essential for the support of detailed study of Fitzgerald and the American novel, may well replace the older Wilson version." Choice "...this novel has been considered the finest story of the Hollywood film industry during the age of the great studios. In this new edition Bruccoli presents us with Fitzgerald's manuscript drafts, revised typescripts, and notes, giving us not only the novel but its creation. And Bruccoli's introduction is itself a fascinating piece of research; a marvelous read." Books of the Southwest "This critical edition of Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel restores the author's original 1940 version..." American Literature "The production of the definitive edition, based upon a significant number of hand-and-type written MSS...is a notable achievement, made especially important and necessary because of the inchoate and incomplete state of the novel. The work offers a marvelous opportunity for readers and writers alike literally to watch a novel in the making..." David Noel Freedman, Michigan Quarterly review