The Princeton Collection

Excerpt from the foreword by P. C. Weber:


Just three years before the publication of his first novel This Side of Paradise rendered him an overnight literary sensation, F. Scott Fitzgerald was living the spirited life of an upperclassman at Princeton University. The time he spent there resulted in a treasure trove of short stories, dramas, parodies, and verse that has been largely overlooked within his overall body of work. The Princeton Collection represents a concerted attempt to resurrect the finest of these forgotten early pieces and make them available in a digital format for the very first time. Fitzgerald's prodigious talent is clearly obvious in this volume of collegiate writings, where he is already beginning to explore many of the themes and character personas that would distinguish his later work. Here the reader will find all of the familiar musings on the foibles of the wealthy class, the illusory nature of true beauty, and the inevitable failure of romantic idealism, not to mention an assortment of independent-minded young women who serve as prototypes to the Jazz Age flappers that Fitzgerald would later make his own. This compilation also presents a rich snapshot of campus life in the early twentieth century, a time when American involvement in the First World War loomed large, the Roaring Twenties were set to explode, and an entire generation was about to lose its innocence. Seven of these pieces were eventually revised by Fitzgerald for publication in commercial print at a later date, and The Princeton Collection also provides the final versions of these works as well as a history of how each evolved.


Additional information:


This beautifully formatted e-book is compatible with all Apple devices and contains two fully functional tables of contents (actual and logical) as well as a chronology of works with active links. The text has been carefully proofed against original source documents and includes a foreword by the editor.


All profits from the sale of this book are being donated to charity to help fight the current worldwide epidemic of tuberculosis (TB). Thank you for your support.


List of works included in this compilation:


Shadow Laurels (1915), The Ordeal (1915), To My Unused Greek Book (1916), Jemina: A Story of the Blue Ridge Mountains By John Phlox, Jr. (1916), The Usual Thing By Robert W. Shameless (1916), Little Minnie McCloskey: A Story for Girls (1916), The Old Frontiersman: A Story of the Frontier (1916), The Debutante (1917), The Spire and the Gargoyle (1917), Rain Before Dawn (1917), The Diary of a Sophomore (1917), Tarquin of Cheepside (1917), The Prince of Pests: A Story of The War (1917), Babes in the Woods (1917), Princeton: The Last Day (1917), Sentiment and the Use of Rouge (1917), On a Play Twice Seen (1917), The Pierian Springs and the Last Straw (1917), Cedric the Stoker: The True Story of the Battle of the Baltic (1917), The Staying Up All Night (1917), City Dusk (1918), My First Love (1919), The Pope at Confession (1919), Marching Streets (1919), Sleep of a University (1920), The Ordeal (1920 revision), Babes in the Woods (1920 revision), The Debutante (1920 revision), The Spire and the Gargoyle (1920 revision), Princeton: The Last Day (1920 revision), Jemina: A Story of the Blue Ridge Mountains By John Phlox, Jr. (1921 revision), and Tarquin of Cheepside (1921 revision).