The Beautiful and Damned

Introduction by Hortense Calisher
Commentary by Edmund Wilson, Henry Seidel Canby, and Arthur Mizener
Fitzgerald's second novel, a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age, is a largely autobiographical depiction of a glamorous, reckless Manhattan couple and their spectacular spiral into tragedy. Published on the heels of This Side of Paradise, the story of the Harvard-educated aesthete Anthony Patch and his willful wife, Gloria, is propelled by Fitzgerald's intense romantic imagination and demonstrates an increased technical and emotional maturity. The Beautiful and Damned is at once a gripping morality tale, a rueful meditation on love, marriage, and money, and an acute social document. As Hortense Calisher observes in her Introduction, "Though Fitzgerald can entrance with stories so joyfully youthful they appear to be safe-when he cuts himself, you will bleed."
Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American author of novels and short stories. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age. Peter Joucla studied performing arts at Middlesex University. He taught theatre and music in schools and colleges both in England and abroad for several years before gaining full employment in theatre, first as Musical Director with Trestle Theatre Company and later as an actor with The American Drama Group. He founded Tour De Force Theatre Company in 1995 and has since directed nearly fifty productions for the company, which have toured extensively to large-scale venues around the world. He is also a composer and playwright.