Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writings

The first comprehensive collection of writings by Zelda Fitzgerald features her novel "Save Me the Waltz," other semi-autobiographical stories and articles, a play, and a selection of her letters

The beautiful, ill-fated debutante flapper from Alabama who inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age stories wanted to be a great writer like her husband. But her short stories, articles, letters, the novel Save Me the Waltz and her play Scandalabra --most of which were written after her 1930 breakdown--are not persuasive evidence that she had great talent. The two Fitzgeralds shared subject matter (both Save Me the Waltz and Scott's Tender Is the Night depict their glamorous marriage) and a gift for rich atmospheric buildup, sensual detail and imaginative metaphor. With the exception of a few short stories, however, Zelda's fiction is lacking in plot structure, character development, and psychological or emotional depth. Her free-associative style, which drifts from the imaginative to the surreal to the incoherent, often seems to reflect mental instability. Still, her articles and letters, sometimes studded with witty observations and aphorisms, are valuable as social and literary history.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald has long been a romantic figure in American literature--the beautiful Southern belle-turned-flapper, the glamorous wife of F. Scott, the tragic madwoman. Few readers would ever think of her as a writer. Yet from 1922 to 1934, she published a novel, a play, short stories, and magazine articles. This first comprehensive collection of her work is much more than a literary curiosity. Compiled by noted Fitzgerald scholar Bruccoli, it represents Zelda's attempt to find her own creative identity separate from her status as the wife of a famous novelist. Included are her haunting novel Save Me the Waltz , her "farce fantasy" play Scan dalabra, semi-autobiographical stories and articles, and letters written to her husband from the passionate days of their courtship to the bitterness and sadness of Zelda's mental breakdown. While much of her prose is overblown with almost surrealistic descriptions, making for sometimes difficult reading, there is an original mind and wit at work here. The tragedy is that her mental state (she wrote many of these pieces after her 1930 breakdown) prevented her from developing her craft as writer. Highly recommended for literature collections.
-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.