60 Great Books Bauman Rare Books - 22 - An Outstanding Fitzgerald Presentation Copy: “From Percy Byshe Shelley…With The Blessings Of F. Scott Fitzgerald” 19. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. This Side of Paradise. New York, 1920. Octavo, original green cloth recased, custom chemise and half leather slipcase. $27,500. First edition, eighth printing of Fitzgerald’s first novel—issued within five months of the first printing—humorously inscribed: “From Percy Byshe [sic] Shelley to Mrs. Humphrey Ward with the blessings of F. Scott Fitzgerald.” The entire first printing of 3000 copies of Fitzgerald’s first novel sold out quickly (ultimately requiring two more printings in April alone), making its author the new literary sensation. Writing about the book in a brief statement prepared for an American Booksellers Association convention in May of that year, Fitzgerald’s “Apology” claims: “I don’t want to talk about myself because I’ll admit I did that somewhat in this book. In fact, to write it took three months; to conceive it—three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life… My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence: An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.” Contrary to his claim, Fitzgerald began writing the novel in 1917, revising it several times until Scribner’s accepted it for publication in 1919. Eighth printing, as stated on copyright page. Early printings of this novel (April 1920) are exceedingly difficult to obtain. Without extremely scarce original dust jacket. Bruccoli A5.1.a. Bruccoli & Clark I:131. Offsetting from Fitzgerald’s inscription on front pastedown. Mild toning to text block edges, text block expertly recased with expert restoration to original cloth. “It bears the impress, it seems to me, of genius. It is the only adequate study that we have had of the contemporary American in adolescence and young manhood.”— Burton Rascoe
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