Fitzgerald, F. Scott | The Beautiful and Damned; first edition, presentation copy to Harry Hansen

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

The Beautiful and the Damned. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922

8vo. Publisher's green cloth; lightly soiled. Variant pictorial dust jacket with the title lettered in solid black; vertical crease to spine, back panel and spine lightly dustsoiled, a few small chips and short tears at top edge. Housed in a black slipcase with folding cloth chemise.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed to Harry Hansen the front free endpaper: "For Harry Hansen | Dean of the Middle-West | from his friend | F. Scott Fitzgerald."

Harry Hansen was the literary editor of the Chicago Daily News from 1920-1926, during which time Fitzgerald published his first three novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and The Great Gatsby. Hansen was a great supporter of Fitzgerald from the start: when Paradise was published, Hansen sent Scribner's a fan letter with the oft-quoted line, "My, how that boy Fitzgerald can write!" (Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 115).

Fitzgerald followed the success of his debut novel with The Beautiful and Damned, the story of the dissolute life and deterioration of a wealthy, glamorous young couple ("The victor belongs to the spoils"). It was published on 4 March 1922 in a first printing of 20,600 copies, with large second and third printings following in April. Despite this, popular and critical response was mixed, and The Beautiful and Damned has long been judged the weakest of Fitzgerald's five novels. Hansen was one of only a handful of critics who published positive reviews. He judged it to be “a whale of a book" and declared that "it shows Fitzgerald well on his way to become one of the major novelists of our own time” (Chicago Daily News, 15 March 1922).

REFERENCE:

Bruccoli A8.1.b; Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, University of South Caroline Press, 2002

PROVENANCE:

The Estate of Harry Hansen (presentation inscription; Sotheby's Parke Bernet, 6 December 1977, lot 85) — Jane Engelhard (Cragwood booklabel; her sale, Christie's New York, 27 October 1995, lot 40)