Fine Books and Manuscripts
Fine Books and Manuscripts
Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection
Lot Closed
December 16, 09:11 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
This Side of Paradise. New York: Scribner's, 1920
8vo. Publisher's green cloth; spine cracked, spine ends a little rubbed.
First edition, with an autograph letter signed on Scribner's stationery by Fitzgerald to W.E. Hill, the designer of the dust jacket, tipped in at front: "... If my book was half as good as you're [sic] cover I'd sell a million copies."
Fitzgerald’s debut portrait of the Jazz Age’s Lost Generation featured the themes that the author would return to and perfect: that of doomed romance among differing classes and love lost among the endless pursuit of upward social status. Still at Princeton when he sent the manuscript (then titled The Romantic Egoist) to Charles Scribner, it was published in 3,000 copies on 26 March 1920 and its immediate success launched Fitzgerald’s career. By the end of the next year the novel had been reprinted 12 times and sold nearly 50,000 copies.
A wonderful association, referencing the young author's hope for the acclaim the novel brought.
REFERENCE:
Bruccoli A5.1.a
PROVENANCE:
Christie's New York, 22 June 2010, lot 201