FITZGERALD, F. Scott (1896-1940). Autograph letter signed ("F Scott Fitzgerald") to David Balch, editor of Movie Weekly , Westport, Conn., 19 June 1920. 1 pages, 4to, in dark ink, blank lower half of second sheet cut away, both sheets of tan paper mounted on stiffer paper, deacidified and silked . "I'D RATHER WATCH A GOOD SHIMMEE DANCE THAN RUTH ST. DENNIS & PAVALOWA COMBINED" A fine and early letter written just three months after the publication of his first book, This Side of Paradise . "I have unearthed so many esoteric facts about myself lately for magazines etc. that I blush to continue to send out colorful sentences about a rather colorless life. However here are some 'human interest points.' (1.) I was always interested in prodigies because I almost became one -- that is in the technical sense of going to college young. I finally decided to enter at the conventional age of 17. I went in on my 17th birthday and, I think, was one of the ten youngest in my class at Princeton...The original title of 'Head & Shoulders' [a Fitzgerald story which Metro Pictures Corp., with whom Balch was associated, was making into a movie under the title The Chorus Girl's Romance ] was 'The Prodigy' & I just brought in the chorus girl by way of a radical contrast. Before I'd finished she almost stole the story...(3) It ['Head and Shoulders'] will be republished in my collection of short stories Flappers & Philosophers which the Scribners are publishing this fall. (4) I'd rather watch a good shimmee dance than Ruth St. Dennis [sic] & Pavalowa [sic] combined. I see nothing at all disgusting in it." "My story 'The Camel's Back' in the S.E.P. [ Saturday Evening Post ] (which you may be buying) was the fastest piece of writing I've ever heard of. It is twelve thousand words long and it was written in fourteen hours straight writing and sent to the S.E.P. in its original form [it was collected in Tales of the Jazz Age , 1922]." Printed in Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli and M.M. Duggan, pp. 59-60, and in F. Scott Fitzgerald: a Life in Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli, pp. 40-41. Provenance : Once in the William E. Stockhausen Collection of English & American Literature (sale, Part II, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 14 December 1974, lot 577).
FITZGERALD, F. Scott (1896-1940). Autograph letter signed ("F Scott Fitzgerald") to David Balch, editor of Movie Weekly , Westport, Conn., 19 June 1920. 1 pages, 4to, in dark ink, blank lower half of second sheet cut away, both sheets of tan paper mounted on stiffer paper, deacidified and silked . "I'D RATHER WATCH A GOOD SHIMMEE DANCE THAN RUTH ST. DENNIS & PAVALOWA COMBINED" A fine and early letter written just three months after the publication of his first book, This Side of Paradise . "I have unearthed so many esoteric facts about myself lately for magazines etc. that I blush to continue to send out colorful sentences about a rather colorless life. However here are some 'human interest points.' (1.) I was always interested in prodigies because I almost became one -- that is in the technical sense of going to college young. I finally decided to enter at the conventional age of 17. I went in on my 17th birthday and, I think, was one of the ten youngest in my class at Princeton...The original title of 'Head & Shoulders' [a Fitzgerald story which Metro Pictures Corp., with whom Balch was associated, was making into a movie under the title The Chorus Girl's Romance ] was 'The Prodigy' & I just brought in the chorus girl by way of a radical contrast. Before I'd finished she almost stole the story...(3) It ['Head and Shoulders'] will be republished in my collection of short stories Flappers & Philosophers which the Scribners are publishing this fall. (4) I'd rather watch a good shimmee dance than Ruth St. Dennis [sic] & Pavalowa [sic] combined. I see nothing at all disgusting in it." "My story 'The Camel's Back' in the S.E.P. [ Saturday Evening Post ] (which you may be buying) was the fastest piece of writing I've ever heard of. It is twelve thousand words long and it was written in fourteen hours straight writing and sent to the S.E.P. in its original form [it was collected in Tales of the Jazz Age , 1922]." Printed in Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli and M.M. Duggan, pp. 59-60, and in F. Scott Fitzgerald: a Life in Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli, pp. 40-41. Provenance : Once in the William E. Stockhausen Collection of English & American Literature (sale, Part II, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 14 December 1974, lot 577).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
