Great Writers/

Great Drinkers

Selling Exhibition • 17–24 January 2025 • New York

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is remembered as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. The author of four acclaimed novels and over 150 short stories, he is renowned for his vivid depictions of the “Jazz Age,” a period of extravagance that he most famously encapsulated in his fourth novel, The Great Gatsby. After graduating from Princeton University in 1917 and being discharged from the U.S. army in 1919, Fitzgerald moved to New York City, where he launched his literary career, married Zelda Sayre, and developed an opulent celebrity which took him to Long Island, Paris, and Hollywood. This lifestyle of abundant drinking and socializing formed an essential part of his identity, seeping into his work. It is employed in Gatsby and Tender is the Night as a means for characters to interact with one another and as a reflection of their mental state. Though he enjoyed limited commercial success during his lifetime, his works are now celebrated as cornerstones of American literature and have been adapted into several major films.

“I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of,” said the man who left an indelible mark on hard-boiled detective fiction. Drawing from his early days working as an operative for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Dashiell Hammett began his career publishing short stories in Black Mask, the leading crime-fiction “pulp magazine” of the 1920s. Several of his novels, including his best-known The Maltese Falcon, appeared in Black Mask before their published versions. Alongside his literary career, Hammett served in both World Wars and became an active member of the American Communist Party. Though these greatly influenced his writing, they also contributed to a decline in output. He contracted several illnesses during his service abroad and faced further hardships after serving in a West Virginia federal penitentiary for his political activity. Though the end of Hammett’s life was characterized by poor health, his legacy remains entrenched in American culture. His gritty stories and distinctive writing style gave birth to the “hard-boiled” school of detective fiction, a genre that would evolve into the classic “film noir.” Hammett’s characters, much like their creator, navigated a hardened world where alcohol, a constant presence, served as both a nerve steadier and symbol of turmoil for his characters.

Responsible for one of the most widely imitated prose styles of the 20th century, Ernest Miller Hemingway received both the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Peace Prize for his acclaimed novels and short stories. His immensely successful career was shaped by an injury he suffered at 18 while serving as an ambulance driver during World War I. Upon his return from military service, Hemingway moved to Paris, where he became a regular at Gertrude Stein’s salon, mingling with Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Following the success of his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926, Hemingway moved from Paris to Key West, Florida and later traveled extensively in Spain, Africa, Idaho, and Cuba, documenting political instability and civil war as a journalist. Widely associated with a robust lifestyle of drinking, his habits permeated his writings, be it through the ritualistic libations of wine in Death in the Afternoon, or the afternoons spent imbibing at Les Deux Magots in The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway’s complex life is inextricably bound to his self-proclaimed identity as one of the “Lost Generation,” where disillusionment drove its members to search for meaning in a changing world.